POV: Hunter
The smell of coffee and eggs filled the safe house kitchen. Hunter moved slowly, deliberately. He was setting a stage. He placed two plates on the small table, forks, napkins. Normalcy. It was the most difficult mission he'd ever prepared for.
Tessa came out, dressed in jeans and one of his old sweatshirts. She looked exhausted but calm. She gave him another fragile smile. "You cooked."
"Trying to keep busy," he said, pouring her coffee. He sat down across from her. They ate in silence for a few minutes. The clink of forks was loud in the quiet room.
Now. Do it now.
He took a sip of his coffee, buying a second to steady his voice. He made it sound soft, curious, not accusing. "Tess, I was looking at our accounts last night. Just… trying to get a handle on things. Our savings… it looks a lot lower than I thought it would be."
He watched her.
She froze. A forkful of eggs stopped halfway to her mouth. Her eyes, which had been looking at her plate, darted up to his, then away. A faint tremor went through her hand. The fork clinked against the plate.
"Oh," she said. The sound was small. "Yeah. I… I've been meaning to talk to you about that."
"Is everything okay?" he asked, layering concern over his question. "Did something happen?"
She put the fork down. She picked up her coffee mug with both hands, as if to steady them. She took a sip, but her hand shook. A dark brown drop splashed onto the table. She didn't seem to notice.
"It's Mom," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She stared into her mug, refusing to meet his gaze. "She… she's been sick. Not like, hospital sick, but… medical bills. For her treatments. Insurance didn't cover it all. She was drowning."
Hunter felt his chest tighten. The lie was so smooth. So practiced. Medical bills. Not gambling debts. Not loans to dangerous men.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, his voice still gentle, but a hard edge wanted to break through. "We're a team. We could have helped together."
"I was embarrassed!" she blurted out, finally looking at him. Her eyes were wide, glistening with sudden tears. They were the eyes of a trapped animal. "She's my mom. I felt like it was my responsibility. And you were always so stressed with work, and then you retired and I… I didn't want to add to it. I thought I could handle it. I thought if I just helped her get back on her feet, it would stop."
The tears spilled over. They looked real. They sounded real. But he'd seen the data. He'd seen the empty safe.
"How much, Tessa?" he asked, reaching across the table to take her hand. It was ice cold. "How much did you send her?"
She sobbed, a ragged, broken sound. "I don't know. A lot. Maybe… thirty thousand?"
She's lowballing it. She was lying to his face, even in her "confession." The number was almost twenty thousand dollars short. The betrayal wasn't just the action; it was the ongoing, calculated deception.
"Oh, Tess," he said, squeezing her hand, playing the part of the comforting, understanding husband. Inside, he was freezing over. "We'll figure it out. It's just money. We'll get through this."
She collapsed forward, crying into her hands. "I'm so sorry, Hunter. I'm so, so sorry."
He got up, came around the table, and held her while she cried. He stroked her hair. He made all the right sounds. He was a fortress of comfort, and inside, the walls were made of ice.
She had just confirmed the financial betrayal. But she had lied about the amount and the reason. She was still hiding something. Something bigger.
And he now knew, without a doubt, that his wife could look him in the eye and cry while telling him a lie.
Tessa confesses to sending money but lies about the amount and reason, confirming her betrayal and proving to Hunter she's a skilled liar, leaving him unsure what else she's concealing.