Rain drummed against the glass like a thousand tiny accusations. Inside the room, she stood perfectly still, her hands wrapped around a mug she didn't remember pouring tea into.
He was laughing.
Not her husband. Not the man she thought she knew. Just… him. That smile—the one that used to make her heart ache with longing—was now a weapon pointed straight at her chest.
Years of devotion. Years of whispered promises in the dark. Years of love she thought was enough. And yet here he was, grinning at another woman, daring the world to see her humiliation.
The room spun.
Her lips moved, forming words that never left her throat. Her voice had betrayed her too many times before; this time, she would not beg. She would not cry.
Because the woman who once loved him… was gone.
A single drop of rain hit the window, and she realized it mirrored the last tear she would ever shed for him.
She took a breath. Cold. Controlled. Precise.
The man who had built his life on her loyalty would never see it coming.
And yet… part of her couldn't help but feel it: a shiver of anticipation. Not for him. For herself.
The new her.
The dangerous her.
The one who would no longer be invisible.
She slipped out of the room quietly, leaving the laughter behind like a discarded memory. Outside, the city was slick and glimmering under the streetlights. Shadows danced across the pavement, and for the first time in years, she felt… free.
But freedom was never quiet.
Because somewhere in the shadows, he watched. And he would realize, too late, that the woman he had loved—truly loved—had walked away.
And what remained behind was not the heartbroken wife he thought he had destroyed… but a storm.
A storm he would regret under every heartbeat of his existence.