Chapter 3 - THE OTHER WOMAN'S SHADOW
Her name was Julianne.
She was everything I wasn't supposed to be.
Loud,
ambitious,
and draped in labels that shouted her price.
Adrian loved the noise she made.
He loved the way she looked on his arm at corporate galas,
when he could get away with it.
He loved the danger of her.
He thought he had found a lioness.
He didn't realize he had found a parasite.
I watched her from afar,
sometimes following her social media with a burner account.
She posted photos of her "new life."
The view from the penthouse he bought her.
The shoes he paid for with my inheritance.
She thought she was winning.
She thought she had successfully replaced the "old model."
I felt a strange sense of pity for her.
She didn't know Adrian the way I did.
She didn't know that his love was a transaction.
She didn't know that once she became "safe,"
he would look for someone else to be "dangerous."
Adrian came home late that night,
smelling of her.
He walked into the bedroom and saw me reading.
"You're still up?"
he asked,
his voice smooth and patronizing.
"I couldn't sleep,"
I said,
not looking up from my book.
"You worry too much,
Mara,"
he said,
leaning down to kiss my forehead.
"You should just relax.
Everything is taken care of."
The kiss felt like a brand of ice.
"I know it is,
Adrian,"
I replied.
He smiled,
thinking I meant he was providing for me.
He thought he was the hero of my story.
He went to the bathroom to wash her scent off his skin.
I listened to the water running.
I looked at the silver key on the nightstand.
He hadn't even noticed it was gone from the library.
He was so blinded by his own reflection in Julianne's eyes,
that he was becoming sloppy.
He was losing the very edge that had made him successful.
He was becoming the version of a man he used to despise.
Weak.
Distracted.
Arrogant.
I closed my eyes and imagined the collapse.
It wouldn't be loud.
It would be a silent slide into ruin.
The way a building falls when the support beams are hollowed out by rot.
I was the rot.
May you like
I was the silence.
I was the truth he chose to ignore.
