"I am your wife, Oscar!" Linnea's voice rang out—loud, trembling with rage, yet exhausted. "How many times have I seen those messages? That name—Ebba! Who is she to you?!"
Oscar didn't answer. His chest heaved with heavy breaths, his eyes blazing with a fury he had buried for too long.
"Don't be ridiculous, Linnea. I'm working—working hard for this family. If a woman sends me a message, it's strictly business!"
"Lies!" Linnea pointed a shaking finger at his face. "I saw you! In the car that night! Do you think I'm blind?!"
The sharp crash of shattering glass sliced through the air. Their seven-year-old daughter, Saga, squeezed her eyes shut in the corner of the room, her small body trembling. This wasn't the first argument—but tonight felt different. Crueler. Colder. Terrifying.
"I'm done, Linn," Oscar's voice dropped—low and razor-sharp. "If you can't trust me, maybe we're no longer meant to be together."
"Oscar…" Linnea's voice faltered like the last breath of a dying flame. She stood motionless at the threshold of the living room, her weary eyes watching her husband loosen his tie with indifference. "I still want to fix this… for Saga. She needs her father. I believe—we can still save our family…"
Oscar kept his back to her. His shoulders didn't move. Silence answered her plea. Until—
A small laugh—low and cruel—slithered into the room.
It wasn't warm.
It wasn't kind.
"You keep lying to yourself, Linnea," he said as he slowly turned to face her. His expression was blank. Hollow. As though he had already buried everything they once had. "You're weak. And I… I'm done pretending."
Linnea stifled the sob clawing up her throat. "Oscar, what happened to you...? This isn't you. This isn't—"
"This is who I am now," he cut in sharply. "I'm tired of being the husband of a woman who questions every step I take. Tired of being a father to a child I've never been proud of. I want something real."
"Real?" Linnea's voice cracked as it rose. "You call another woman's embrace real?!"
Oscar stepped closer—so close Linnea could smell an unfamiliar scent of expensive cologne clinging to him.
"I found a comfort I couldn't refuse," he whispered, lips curling into a cruel smile. "Gentleness. Affection. Attention. All the things a man longs for… but none of them came from you. They came from her. From Ebba."
Linnea's face drained of color. "You mean… you actually cheated on me with your secretary…?"
Oscar nodded—without shame. "Yes. And I've already married her. We have a child together. And I will never leave her. Not now. Not ever."
The dam broke. Linnea collapsed inward, her body shaking.
"You betrayed our marriage… betrayed me and Saga… and now you've married someone else?"
"Don't talk to me about marriage harmony, Linnea. I chose reality. Not the illusion of happiness that died long ago. You were too busy being a mother and a housekeeper to remember you were also a wife. You let yourself go. You stopped being beautiful. You stopped being someone I wanted."
Oscar pulled out his phone. A new message blinked on the screen.
"My bed feels so cold tonight. Come, Oscar. My arms are waiting." —Ebba
Without looking back at the woman he once vowed to love, Oscar walked out the door. The rain had begun to fall, soft and steady. But not even the rain could wash away the filth clinging to his soul.
Elsewhere, in a lavish suite bathed in soft light, Ebba waited on a king-sized bed, her crimson silk nightgown gleaming like sin itself. A glass of wine shimmered in her hand. Her smile was slow, smug, as her eyes remained fixed on the door.
And then—three knocks.
"Come in," she said, her voice a seductive purr.
Oscar entered, soaked from the rain, his eyes alight with an ambition that had long devoured his shame. He stood silently at the edge of the bed, staring at the body that had been his secret pleasure for seven years.
Ebba smiled in triumph. "Come closer, Oscar. Say it again—tell me you always missed me. That you only ever wanted me."
He obeyed—without a word, without hesitation—stepping toward the woman he had secretly married, year after year.
"Stay with me, Oscar," she whispered, reaching out to him, surrendering her body to the man she had stolen from her best friend.
"Only I can make you happy."
***
Days passed beneath a haze of grief. Linnea tried to stay strong—for Saga. She still cooked every morning, still woke her daughter with a soft voice and a forced smile. And she still covered the swelling beneath her eyes with a thin layer of powder that never quite did the job.
But the silence grew heavier with each passing day, seeping into the walls, poisoning the air of that once-loving home. Oscar rarely came back anymore. And when he did, he reeked of expensive perfume and wore that mocking smile he no longer reserved for his wife or child.
Linnea knew. She knew everything.
About Ebba—her closest friend for years and Oscar's secretary—the woman whispered about at his office, the one everyone suspected had become his mistress. Linnea heard the rumors, like venom drifting through air, impossible to avoid.
But what truly broke her wasn't the betrayal. It was the moment she saw it with her own eyes.
That day, the rain fell hard across the city. Saga was asleep in her room, struck down once again with a high fever. Linnea had tried to reach Oscar—again and again—but he never answered. Not a single call.
Then, late that night, Oscar's car finally pulled into the driveway. Linnea's heart thudded violently. Her hands trembled. Something felt wrong. Something was already broken. She stepped closer to the door—and there they were. Oscar, stepping out of the car… with Ebba by his side. And in her arms, a little girl. A child no older than six. A child just a year younger than Saga.
"Come on in. From now on, this house is yours too," Oscar said softly to Ebba and the child. But Linnea had already reached them. She had already seen.
Her world collapsed.
Oscar—her husband—had his arm wrapped around Ebba's waist, his touch tender and protective. The little girl clung to him like he was her entire world.
Ebba smiled faintly. Not an ounce of guilt on her face. She looked at Linnea not as a friend, not even as a rival— But as a servant standing at the doorway of a home she no longer belonged to.
"Ah, Linnea. You're still prettier than I expected." Her voice was sweet. Like poison laced in honey.
Oscar flinched, as if realizing too late the weight of what was unraveling before him. But the damage was done. Linnea stood frozen. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted—no words came.
The world dimmed.
And her heart—long wounded—simply stopped trying.
With a heavy, echoing thud, Linnea's body collapsed onto the marble floor.
There was no blood. Only silence.
Only the glassy, lifeless stare of a woman who had once been the center of Oscar's universe.
Linnea was gone—taking her pain with her into death.
The next morning, the funeral was small. Quiet. Cold. Saga stood alone beside her mother's grave, holding a tiny black umbrella with frozen fingers. She refused to be touched.
Not even by Oscar—who watched from a distance, dressed in black, face unreadable.
"You hurt her, Daddy…" Saga's whisper was barely audible. Only the wind heard it.
But quietly, this story is just beginning—slowly, yet inevitably.
***