Audrey's POV
The elevator doors opened. Audrey walked into the lobby. She just put one foot in front of the other.
The marble floor shone. She walked across it, not really seeing it. Her phone felt hot in her hand. Those seven pictures kept flashing in her mind, even when she wasn't looking at the screen.
There were seven pictures, not just one. It wasn't a mistake. Someone carefully took and sent all seven pictures just minutes after she left.
Someone was waiting for her to leave.
The doorman said something. She didn't hear him.
The cold night air hit her face. She stopped on the sidewalk. For a moment, the city seemed to move around her, like she was watching it through a window.
Yellow taxis, a laughing couple, a food cart with steam rising.
Her hands were not shaking. That scared her more than if they had been.
She looked at her phone again. It was an unknown number. No message came with the pictures. No mean text.
Just the photos, sent one after another, about 30 seconds apart.
Someone had taken their time to do it.
She thought about going back upstairs. But she just started walking.
She walked twelve blocks. She didn't have a plan or a place to go. Her heel caught in a crack in the sidewalk, and she grabbed a streetlamp to steady herself.
That little stumble made something break inside her, something the pictures hadn't.
She had planned that dinner for three weeks. The restaurant was hard to get into. She used a favor from someone Scott barely knew to get a table.
She picked out her dress on Fifth Avenue.
Standing in the fitting room, she told herself tonight was when they would get back together.
They had been together two years, and a quiet distance had grown between them.
It was the kind of distance that builds up before anyone talks about it.
She thought the distance was because of work, stress, and that it would pass.
She put her phone in her bag. Her fingers felt the velvet envelope. It was still there. Two tickets to Paris, for Friday.
She had pictured his face when he opened it.
She took the envelope out and threw it in the next trash can she saw, without stopping.
Her phone rang. It was Scott. She watched his name on the screen until it stopped ringing. It rang again right away. She turned the sound off and kept walking.
By the time she got to Sophie's building in Midtown, her feet were numb in her shoes. Her face felt tight from the cold, which she hadn't thought about.
She pushed the buzzer and stood under the yellow light by the door.
Sophie's voice came through the speaker, sounding sleepy and confused. Audrey just said her name.
The door buzzed open. No more words were said.
Sophie saw her in the hallway and moved aside. She didn't ask anything. Sophie put the kettle on, got a blanket, and sat across from Audrey at the small kitchen table. The city hummed far below them.
"He wasn't alone," Audrey said.
Sophie's face didn't change. "Who was she?"
"Elena Chase."
There was a pause. Sophie knew that name. Everyone who knew Scott knew her name. She was his first love.
He never talked about her, which meant he never stopped thinking about her.
"He said he didn't know how he got there." Audrey's voice was flat. "He looked confused. Really confused."
"Do you believe him?"
She thought about his face. How he moved slowly. His eyes found her across the room, like someone coming up from underwater.
"I don't know what to believe." She put her phone on the table. "Someone sent me these."
Sophie looked at the pictures for a long time. "Someone wanted you to see them," she said. "Someone knew you had left and knew exactly when to send them."
"Elena."
"Or someone working with her."
Audrey's tea got cold. She didn't drink it.
It was two in the morning. Sophie's extra room was dark and quiet. Audrey lay on top of the bed covers, still dressed, staring at the ceiling.
She couldn't sleep, and she wasn't trying to. Instead, she was quietly putting things together in her mind. What she knew.
What she could show was true. What would happen next?
The problem was what to do next.
She had no money of her own. Everything was shared with Scott. All their accounts and cards were linked to his family's business or their household money.
She had left college to marry him. She had no degree, no job history, and no work experience.
For two years, she had gone to fancy parties and made their home nice, but it seemed the home was used for things she didn't know about.
Her phone lit up on the nightstand. It wasn't Scott this time. It was Victoria Winters. Her adoptive mother.
Calling at 2 AM meant someone had already called Victoria, and Audrey didn't expect that.
She answered. "Audrey." Victoria's voice was the same as always: calm and careful, like cold stone. "I talked to James Williams."
Her stomach dropped. "Tonight?"
"Scott called his father. James called me." There was a short pause. "I think you know what happened is very bad. But how you act in the next few days will decide a lot."
"I found my husband in bed with someone else."
"I understand. Scott will have to deal with the results of his actions within the family." The word "results" was said so carefully that it didn't mean much. "But Audrey, you need to think straight.
The Williams family has been very good to you. Your place in society, your home, your friends. Everything."
She sat up.
"Don't make this worse," Victoria said. "Don't say anything. Don't call anyone. James wants a quiet deal. You will be given money. Privately."
"You're asking me to go away."
"I'm asking you to be smart about this."
Audrey looked at Sophie's extra room. The used dresser. The water stain on the ceiling above the window.
"I'll call you tomorrow," she said and hung up.
Her hands were shaking now. Finally,
Her phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number, not the one that sent the pictures. "You were never going to last, Audrey.
The apartment will be locked down at nine tomorrow morning. James ordered it. Get your things before then."
Eight hours. They were kicking her out of her own home like she was a guest who stayed too long.
Her phone rang again. This time, the name on the screen made her stop. Daniel Carter. Scott's best friend. He was the only one in their group who always treated her like a real person.
She stared at his name. He never called this late. Not once in two years.
She answered. "Audrey." His voice was tight. He sounded urgent, which didn't fit the quiet time of night. "Don't sign anything tomorrow. Whatever they give you, don't sign it."
"Daniel."
"I was there tonight," he said. "Earlier, before you got home. Something isn't right, and I can't prove it yet, but Audrey, don't sign anything until I can."
She heard a door open on his end. She heard him say something quick and quiet to someone in the room.
Then the line went dead.