Anna sat in the middle of the quiet living room, legs folded beneath her on the cold marble floor. The envelope sat next to her like a loaded gun—silent, threatening, final.
She had stared at it for hours now. Opened it. Closed it. Touched the edge of the papers inside but couldn't bring herself to sign them. The signature line waited for her name in neat, blue ink.
Levi's signature was already there. Clean. Confident. Cold.
Everything about him had been an illusion, a well-packaged lie wrapped in charm and ambition.
And now, she had no husband. No marriage. No explanation. And no place she could call home. The house she once decorated with love and memories now felt like a stranger's museum. Every corner whispered his betrayal.
Her phone buzzed on the floor beside her. The screen blinked: 1% Battery Remaining. It was almost poetic.
She hesitated for a long moment before picking it up. Her fingers moved before her mind could stop them, scrolling through the contacts until they landed on the one name she'd avoided for years.
Mom.
Her breath caught in her throat. She hadn't spoken to Elain Whitmore in years—not since she made the biggest decision of her life.
Six years ago.
Anna still remembered the day she introduced Levi to her mother. It had been at one of Elain's charity galas—one of those events filled with polished smiles and stiff champagne. Anna had worn her favorite emerald dress, her hair styled the way her mother always liked it. She had clung to Levi's arm like he was her ticket to freedom, her rebellion wrapped in a suit and cologne.
Elain had taken one look at him and frowned.
"Careful, darling," she'd said later that night when they were alone in her study. "There's something in his eyes I don't trust. He's not what you think he is."
But Anna had been too in love. Or maybe too desperate to be seen, heard, chosen. She had thrown those words back in her mother's face, accused her of controlling her life, of judging people too harshly.
A week later, she'd packed her bags and left. Left the mansion, the boardrooms, the family legacy. She had run straight into Levi's arms.
And as she slammed the door shut on the Whitmore name, her mother had left her with one final warning.
"If you walk away from this family, Anna, you walk away from everything. Never speak of who you are again—not until you know what the world truly is."
She hadn't. She buried the name "Whitmore" like it was a dead thing, and became just Anna Graham. A wife. A homemaker. A ghost of who she used to be.
Now here she was—divorced, broken, and alone.
She pressed the call button before she could talk herself out of it.
The line rang once. Twice.
Then—"Anna?" The voice on the other end was calm but sharp. Measured.
"Mom…" Her voice cracked like glass.
Silence followed for a beat, then Elain spoke again—no questions, no anger. Just one word.
"Come home."
Anna's lips trembled. "I didn't know where else to go," she whispered.
"Come home, Anna. Right now."
No judgment. No bitterness. Just the firm voice of a mother who had been waiting, watching from afar, perhaps knowing this day would come.
The call ended before Anna could say more.
She stood, legs shaky beneath her, and moved like a sleepwalker toward the bedroom. She shoved a few things into a duffel bag—clothes, documents, the envelope with her broken marriage inside. She didn't bother with makeup or jewelry. What was the point? Her reflection in the mirror was almost unrecognizable—eyes hollow, face pale.
Outside, the sky was beginning to cloud over, the light dimming into late afternoon shadows. She climbed into her car, started the engine, and pulled away from the house that had become her cage.
The city lights blurred past her as she drove. Her hands clenched the steering wheel, knuckles pale, her mind drifting in and out of the present.
Six years of sacrifice. Of dimming her light so Levi could shine. She had loved him with every part of herself, even when he grew distant, even when he stopped seeing her as a partner and more like an accessory. And yet, she had stayed. Hoping. Praying.
For what?
To be thrown away like she never mattered?
Her mother had tried to warn her. She saw it even when Anna refused to. Not because Elain was controlling, but because she was wise. She had clawed her way to the top of a brutal industry. She knew the smell of danger—of dishonesty.
Anna's vision blurred with the weight of all she had lost. And now, heading back to the very life she had once rejected, she wondered if she would even be welcomed back.
A sharp gust of wind pushed against the car. Rain began to fall—at first a light drizzle, then harder, faster. The wipers screeched against the windshield as thunder cracked in the distance.
She blinked through the haze, headlights flashing in her peripheral vision. Her heart raced—not from speed, but from the memories clawing at her mind.
Levi, holding Vanessa like she didn't exist.
His voice, cold as marble: "You should've seen this coming."
The envelope.
The silence.
Her fingers slipped slightly on the steering wheel, slick with sweat.
She was too far inside her thoughts to see the red light ahead.
Too slow to notice the truck crossing the intersection from the left.
A horn blared. Tires screamed.
She jerked the wheel instinctively, a gasp tearing from her throat.
The impact came like a thunderclap.
Metal against metal. Glass shattering.
A violent spin.
Then—nothing.
No sound.
No pain.
Just darkness.