Marcus's POV
I catch Elena before Adrian does, pulling her tight against my chest as her knees give out.
"I've got you," I murmur, but rage is burning through my veins like acid. That twisted, jealous witch just threatened the woman I love and walked away smiling.
Not happening. Not on my watch.
"Marcus, help me get her to the couch," Adrian says, his doctor-mode kicking in. But I barely hear him. All I hear is Jenna's voice: Those recordings go public. Automatically.
I lower Elena onto the couch. She's shaking, her face white as paper. Daniel wheels over fast, grabbing her hand.
"Baby, breathe," he tells her. "Just breathe."
But Elena's eyes are wild. "She has everything. Every conversation. Every word. Oh God, what if my mother hears it? What if my boss—"
"That's not going to happen," I say, my voice coming out harder than I meant. "I won't let it happen."
Adrian shoots me a warning look. "Marcus, we need to think this through—"
"Think?" I spin on him. "That psycho just admitted to bugging this house and blackmailing us, and you want to think? We should be calling the cops right now!"
"And tell them what?" Daniel snaps. "That our friend found out we're planning to share my wife and now she's blackmailing us? That'll go over great."
He's right. I hate it, but he's right. We can't go to the police without exposing everything we're trying to hide.
I start pacing, my hands clenched into fists. This is what I do when I'm angry—I move. When Lauren died three years ago, I walked for days. Drew for weeks. Built buildings in my head because I couldn't fix the real world.
But this? This I can fix. I just need to figure out how.
"There have to be more bugs," I say, forcing myself to focus. "She said that wasn't the only one. We need to find them all."
Adrian nods. "Agreed. But we need to be smart about this. If Jenna's watching somehow, if she sees us searching—"
"Let her watch," I growl. "Let her see exactly what happens when you threaten people I care about."
"Marcus." Elena's voice is small but it stops me cold. She's looking at me with those amber eyes, the ones that have haunted my dreams for two years. "You can't do anything crazy. Please. This is already bad enough."
Something in my chest cracks. She thinks I'm going to make it worse. And maybe she's right. Maybe the guy who lost everything once before isn't the best person to trust with something this delicate.
But I'll be damned if I let another woman I love get destroyed.
"I won't do anything stupid," I promise, crouching in front of her. "But I'm also not going to sit here and let Jenna control our lives. There has to be a way to stop her."
"The recordings," Daniel says slowly. "If we can find where she stored them, delete them before—"
"Cloud storage," Adrian interrupts. "She said cloud storage. That could be anywhere. Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud. We'd need her passwords, her devices—"
"Or we need her to delete them herself," I finish.
Everyone looks at me.
"What do you mean?" Elena asks.
I stand up, my architect brain finally clicking into gear. Buildings are just puzzles. You figure out the load-bearing walls, the weak points, the pressure points. People aren't that different.
"Jenna's jealous," I say. "She's been jealous of Elena for years. She didn't do this just to protect Elena. She did it to punish her."
"Punish me for what?" Elena whispers.
"For having what she wants," I say bluntly. "A husband who loves her. Friends who care about her. A life that matters. Jenna sees all that and it kills her. So she convinced herself she's the hero, saving you from a terrible mistake. But really? She just wants to watch you fall."
Marcus sees it now too. "So we give her what she wants."
"Exactly," I say. "We make her think she won. That her threat worked. That we're ending the arrangement and going back to being miserable. We play along until she feels safe enough to—"
"To what?" Daniel challenges. "Delete the evidence? Why would she do that?"
"Because keeping it means keeping the weapon," Adrian says slowly, catching on. "And if she thinks the threat is over, that we've learned our lesson, she might relax. Might feel guilty enough to—"
"Jenna doesn't feel guilty about anything," Elena cuts in bitterly. "She thinks she's right. She always thinks she's right."
I crouch in front of Elena again, taking her cold hands in mine. "Then we make her think she's wrong. We show her that we're all miserable without the arrangement. That breaking us apart broke us completely. We manipulate her guilt until she can't stand it anymore."
"That could take weeks," Adrian warns. "Months even."
"Or days," I counter, "if we play it right. Jenna's obsessed with Elena. She checks on her constantly. If Elena suddenly seems devastated, heartbroken, Jenna will notice. She'll feel powerful at first. But then..."
"The guilt will eat her alive," Elena finishes, understanding dawning in her eyes. "Because under all that jealousy, she does care about me. In her twisted way."
"Exactly," I say. "We use her emotions against her. Make her think she destroyed you instead of saved you. Make her want to fix it."
Daniel's face is grim. "That's risky. What if it backfires? What if she releases the recordings anyway?"
"Then we're no worse off than we are now," I point out. "Right now, we're sitting ducks. At least this way, we're taking action."
Adrian stands, running his hands through his hair. "We'd need to be careful. Coordinated. One wrong move and—"
His phone rings, cutting him off. He glances at the screen and goes pale.
"It's the hospital," he says. "My supervisor." He answers, his voice professional. "Dr. Chen speaking."
We all watch his face change. From pale to gray to almost green.
"I see," he says carefully. "Yes. I understand. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
He hangs up, and his hand is shaking.
"What?" Elena asks, fear sharp in her voice. "What happened?"
Adrian looks at her, and I've never seen him this scared. Not even when Daniel was bleeding out in the ER two years ago.
"Someone sent an anonymous email to the hospital board," he says quietly. "With an audio file attached. Of me confessing that I'm in love with my best friend's wife."
The room goes silent.
"They're launching an ethics investigation," Adrian continues, his voice hollow. "As of right now, I'm suspended. And if they prove I've been having an inappropriate relationship with a patient's family member..."
He doesn't finish. He doesn't have to.
Elena's face crumples. "Oh my God. Adrian, I'm so sorry—"
"It's not just him," Daniel says, staring at his own phone. His face has gone white. "I just got an email too. From my company's HR department. Someone sent them a recording of me... of me offering to share my wife with other men."
"No," Elena breathes. "No, no, no—"
My phone buzzes. My heart already knows what it is before I look.
A text from my firm's senior partner: We need to talk. Immediately. Some very disturbing allegations have been made about your personal conduct.
I look up at Elena, at Adrian, at Daniel. We're all staring at our phones like they're weapons aimed at our heads.
"She didn't wait," Elena whispers. "Jenna didn't wait for anything to happen to her. She just... she just destroyed all of us anyway."
Another text comes through. This time it's the same unknown number from before:
Told you I'd make it interesting. But don't worry—I only sent recordings to your employers. Your families get theirs tomorrow morning. Unless you do exactly what I say. —J
My hands shake with rage so pure it's almost blinding.
"What does she want?" Daniel asks, his voice dead.
Elena's phone buzzes. A new message. She reads it out loud, her voice breaking:
Elena comes to my apartment. Alone. Tonight at 8pm. Or everyone you love learns the truth. No police. No recording. Just you and me. Time to choose, bestie. —J