Amanda POV:
Brody used to flood his social media feeds with pictures of us, of Eben, of our life. His captions were always the same: "My everything," "Blessed," "Forever." He'd post about my achievements, my small victories, as if they were his own. He was proud. Obsessively proud. Then, slowly, the posts became less frequent. Then they stopped altogether. I know now, that was when he started making his choice.
He had chosen. Long before I' d crawled back to him. I was simply too blind, too desperate, to see it. All my fighting, all my enduring, all for this. To be tossed aside like trash. It was a joke. A cruel, cosmic joke.
Brody was still there, leaning against the wall, scrolling through his phone. A soft smile touched his lips, a gentle curving of his mouth I hadn't seen directed at me in days. I knew who he was talking to. I knew the look. I counted the seconds. Three. Two. One.
He looked up, his mild pleasantness instantly replaced by a scowl when his eyes met mine. "Look," he said, his voice sharp, devoid of the earlier tenderness. "Don't get any ideas. I'm letting you stay here, in this hospital, only because a public scene would be bad for business. But you need to understand your place. Don't cause trouble. And don't expect anything from me. If you try to interfere with my life, with my family, I'll make sure you end up on the streets. Permanently."
He didn't wait for a reply. He spun on his heel, striding out of the room, his phone pressed to his ear. I heard his voice, softer now, distant. "Carla, sweetheart? Yes, I'm almost done. Just dealing with some... loose ends. I love you too."
His words faded down the corridor, taking with them any residual flicker of emotion within me. My heart was a stone, cold and unfeeling. The anger, the pain, the despair-all of it had receded, leaving behind a vast, echoing emptiness.
I started counting. Not seconds, not minutes. Days. Hours. I knew the CIA would come for me. Clark, my handler, promised. He always kept his promises. I just needed to survive this long enough.
I had rushed back, heart pounding, adrenaline fueling my every step, believing I was racing towards love, towards redemption. Now, all I wanted was to run further away than I'd ever been. To sever every single tie. My survival no longer rested on the hope of their love, but on the cold, hard logic of the Agency.
My phone, the burner I'd bought, vibrated. A single text message. From an unknown number.
Carla Watkins. Cain Glass. Tonight. Warehouse District.
My pupils dilated. Cain Glass. The name was a fresh scar, burning crimson into my consciousness. The ruthless international arms dealer. The man who had captured me, tortured me, kept me in that hellhole for four years. The man I' d thought was dead, killed in the CIA raid that eventually freed me.
My hands trembled, clutching the phone. He was alive. And Carla was with him? A cold dread seeped into my bones. I remembered the screams, the endless nights in that dark cell, the faces of my comrades, broken and silenced. My mission, the reason I'd gone deep undercover, had been to expose Glass. He was a ghost, a myth, until I found him. And he found me.
He had promised me death, a slow, agonizing one. But then I had been pulled out unexpectedly. Not by a rescue mission, but by a sudden, chaotic shift in his operation. I used his distraction, his fleeting moment of carelessness, to escape. Now, the past was reaching out, its icy fingers tightening around my throat.
This wasn't just about my broken family anymore. This was about something far bigger. And far more dangerous. If Carla was involved with Glass, if she was feeding him information, then my family – and perhaps the entire agency – was in grave danger. This was my chance. My chance to finish what I started. My chance to finally bring down Cain Glass.
My decision was swift and ruthless. I would go back. Not for love, not for family. For vengeance. For justice.
I pulled out my old wedding photo from my hospital bag. It was crumpled, but their smiling faces still shone. I took a quick photo, then sent it to Brody's personal number, along with a single, chilling message: "Divorce papers, or I expose everything. Your choice."
My phone vibrated almost instantly. Brody. He was calling. I let it ring. Once. Twice. Then I hit "decline."
Another text came through. Just a period. "."
A cold, mirthless laugh escaped me. A period. The perfect punctuation for our story. My husband. The man I had loved. The man I had fought to return to. We used to talk for hours, about everything and nothing. Now, all that remained was a single, curt punctuation mark. I tossed the phone onto my bed, a piece of useless scrap metal.
