I wheeled myself toward Alexander's office, my hands gripping the rims of my wheelchair with practiced ease. Five years of this—five years of learning to navigate the world without legs. The hallway stretched before me, familiar yet somehow foreign today. Something felt off.
As I approached his door, voices drifted through. Alexander's voice, low and urgent. And another—softer, feminine. Audrey.
"The timing has to be perfect," she was saying. "We can't afford any mistakes."
I froze, my breath catching in my throat. My fingers instinctively found the small recording device I'd begun carrying lately—a gut feeling that something wasn't right.
"She's becoming suspicious," Alexander replied, his voice carrying that familiar authoritative tone he used at work. "Ari's too smart for her own good."
A bitter laugh escaped Audrey's lips. "She always was. That's why we had to get rid of her five years ago."
My heart pounded against my ribs as I positioned myself closer to the door, left slightly ajar.
"Using her as bait was the only way," Alexander said, his voice dropping lower. "The explosion was supposed to scare her away from the case, not—"
"Not cost her legs?" Audrey finished for him. "Well, it worked out better than we planned. She's no threat to us now."
The world tilted beneath me. My hands trembled as I pressed the record button, capturing every damning word.
"I still feel guilty sometimes," Alexander admitted. "She's my wife."
Audrey's laugh was cold, calculated. "She was never right for you. She's broken now, Alex. I'm the one who can help you climb higher."
Their voices faded into murmurs, but I'd heard enough. Five years of pain. Five years of rehabilitation. Five years of believing Alexander's lies while he carried on with her—the woman who'd stolen everything from me.
---
I became a ghost in my own home, watching, waiting, recording. Each night, after Alexander thought I'd fallen asleep, I'd slip into his study and search through his files. The evidence was there—hidden emails, financial records, surveillance photos of me that had been taken before the explosion.
One evening, as I carefully replaced a folder, a shadow fell across the doorway.
"Looking for something?" Audrey stood there, her silhouette sharp against the hallway light.
My blood ran cold. "Just getting a book."
"In Alexander's locked desk drawer?" She stepped closer, her smile predatory. "You've been busy little spy, haven't you?"
Before I could react, she snatched the recorder from my hand. "Technology is amazing these days. So small, so powerful." She crushed it beneath her heel.
"You won't get away with this," I said, fighting to keep my voice steady.
"Oh, but I already have." She leaned down, her face inches from mine. "For five years, Ari. Five years I've been in your bed, in your life, destroying everything you built."
The attack came three days later. I was alone in our house when the doorbell rang. Two men stood outside, their faces obscured by baseball caps.
"Mrs. Hudson?" one asked, his voice oddly formal.
Before I could respond, they pushed past me. One grabbed my wheelchair while the other produced a bottle.
"This is from Audrey," he said, unscrewing the cap. "A parting gift."
The liquid hit my face like fire. I screamed as the acid burned my skin, my eyes. Through the searing pain, I heard the front door open again.
"Alexander!" I cried out blindly.
Footsteps rushed in. Hands reached for me—then stopped. Through my blurred vision, I saw him hesitate, looking between me and Audrey who stood in the doorway.
"Choose, Alex," she said calmly. "Her or me."
He stepped toward her.
---
They planted evidence in my belongings—photos of criminal leaders, encrypted messages, stolen police documents. Everything to frame me as the traitor they needed me to be.
"They'll kill me if I stay," I told myself as I packed a small bag. My face was bandaged, my eyes barely able to see through the swelling. "I need to disappear."
I stole Alexander's car—the one he'd never let me drive—and headed east toward the mountains. The police would be looking for me soon. Audrey would make sure of that.
The road blurred through my tears and injured eyes. A curve came too fast. I swerved, felt the tires skid on loose gravel. The car flipped, rolling down an embankment before coming to rest against a tree.
Pain exploded through my body as I tried to move. Blood pooled beneath me, warm and sticky. I couldn't feel my legs—not that I ever could anymore—but the rest of me was breaking apart.
"Help," I whispered into the darkness. "Please..."
Footsteps approached. Not emergency services. Not Alexander coming to find me.
A silhouette appeared in the shattered window above me. Tall, broad-shouldered, face hidden in shadow.
"Ari Russell," he said, his voice low and certain. "I've been looking for you."
He reached in, careful not to cut me on broken glass, and lifted me from the wreckage with surprising gentleness.
"Who are you?" I managed to ask as consciousness began to fade.
"Matthias West," he replied, cradling me against his chest as he carried me away from the burning car. "And you're not going to die tonight."
