Eliana Vance POV:
I stared dead at the screen. The words "He likes my taste" felt like a jagged knife dragging across my retinas.
My breathing hitched. I was a coder, a hacker at my core. My brain processed information differently than most. I didn't just read the words; I analyzed the syntax, the tone, the implicit arrogance. It dripped with the cheap, flighty provocation of a young girl.
My trembling finger hovered over the screen, then tapped the image attachment loading right below the text.
The photo instantly expanded, filling my entire screen.
The background was a premium leather car seat. I didn't need to guess where it was. I had sat in that exact seat hundreds of times. It was the passenger side of Dustin's Maybach.
The visual center of the image was a man's thigh, clad in dark grey suit pants. I knew the texture of that fabric. I had picked it up from the dry cleaners just two days ago. I could recognize the weave with my eyes closed.
Resting intimately high up on the inner thigh was a woman's hand. Her skin was smooth, young, and her nails were painted with that exact same bright pink polish I had just seen on his desk.
My breath started coming in short, ragged gasps. It felt like someone had poured gasoline into my chest and struck a match. The oxygen in the kitchen was instantly sucked away.
My eyes moved upward against my will. I didn't want to look, but I couldn't stop. My gaze landed on the sliver of metal watchband peeking out from the cuff of the man's sleeve.
It was a Patek Philippe grand complication watch. Right on the edge of the silver bezel was a microscopic scratch.
A bomb went off in my head. The ringing in my ears was deafening. Dustin had accidentally scraped that watch against the garage wall when he was fixing his car last year. He had been so upset about it.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but the darkness only brought back memories. Three years ago, Dustin's startup was bleeding money. His pride was fragile, constantly shattering under the pressure. To buy him that watch for our anniversary, to make him feel like he had made it, I had logged back onto the dark web. I spent thirty sleepless nights taking high-risk, high-stress coding bounties under an encrypted IP. I refused to touch a single cent of my family's trust fund. I ruined my own health to buy him a symbol of success.
I opened my eyes. The hand on his thigh and the watch on his wrist mocked me. It was a vicious, stinging slap directly across my face.
I slammed the phone face-down onto the marble counter. The loud, sharp *crack* of the glass hitting the stone echoed in the room. I needed to cut off the visual feed. I needed it to stop.
My stomach violently heaved. A wave of pure nausea hit me so hard I doubled over. I clamped my hands over my mouth and let out a harsh, dry heave, but there was nothing in my stomach to throw up. Just bile and betrayal.
A sudden, acrid smell of burning food drifted into the air, slicing through my mental breakdown.
I turned my head mechanically. Thick, greyish-black smoke was billowing out from the vents of the built-in oven.
It was the Beef Wellington. I had spent four hours preparing the duxelles, wrapping the prosciutto, scoring the pastry. It was meant to celebrate my thirtieth birthday tonight.
I walked toward the oven. My mind was completely detached from my body. I didn't reach for the silicone oven mitts sitting right on the counter. I just reached out my bare hand and grabbed the scorching metal handle of the oven door.
The second my skin touched the metal, a loud hiss filled the air. The agonizing, blistering pain shot up my arm. I violently yanked my hand back. The physical shock shattered the dam holding my emotions back, and hot tears finally spilled over my eyelashes.
The physical pain was a relief. It drowned out the suffocating agony in my chest. It was a twisted defense mechanism I had built as a child, locking myself in the freezing basement to endure my father's cold violence. If my body hurt enough, my heart couldn't feel a thing.
I grabbed a damp dish towel from the sink and yanked the oven door open. A massive cloud of toxic black smoke rushed out, hitting me in the face and sending me into a fit of violent coughing.
I held my breath, grabbed the edges of the roasting pan with the towel, and hauled it out. I slammed it down onto the kitchen island.
The perfectly golden, flaky crust I had envisioned was gone. In its place was a charred, blackened lump of carbon. It reeked of bitter ash and ruined meat.
I stared at the destroyed food. A short, abrupt sound ripped from my throat. It wasn't a cry. It was a cold, broken laugh that sounded worse than a scream.
Fifteen years. I gave up my inheritance, my identity, my future. I scrubbed his floors and wrote his code in the shadows. And just like this carefully prepared steak, it all burned down to a pile of toxic ash.
I grabbed the hem of the floral apron tied around my waist. Dustin had bought it for me. He said he loved seeing me in it. He said it made me look like a real wife.
I ripped the strings apart with a violent jerk, tearing the fabric. I balled the apron up in my fists and threw it aggressively onto the smoking, charred steak.
Then, I grabbed the handles of the heavy roasting pan. I didn't care that the heat was seeping through the towel. I marched across the kitchen to the smart trash can in the corner.
The motion sensor beeped, and the lid slid open. I didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. I tipped the pan and dumped the entire blackened Wellington, the ruined apron, and the grease straight into the bag.
The heavy mass of ruined food hit the bottom of the plastic bin with a dull, sickening thud. It sounded like a death knell. The funeral bell for my marriage.
The lid hummed and slowly closed, sealing away the smoke and the smell. The kitchen plunged back into a deafening, dead silence.
I turned around. My legs finally gave out. I pressed my back against the freezing wall and slowly slid down until I hit the floor. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them tightly.
"Fifteen years, fed to the dogs."
