Chapter 1

The day I walk free, my wife is standing in the wind, waiting for me. There's no screaming, no hysterics. It's nothing like what I once imagined.

Then our eyes meet. She's holding a black coat as she says, "Jude, you've lost weight."

Before, I would have reached for her hand. I would have asked, in a raw voice, if it could just be the two of us from now on.

But right now, I just turn away without a word.

This time, we're only going to drift further apart.

Lena Cartwright, I don't love you anymore.

Chapter 1

The winter wind was bitter, and I pulled my thin clothes tighter around me.

Lena Cartwright hurried over and grabbed the hem of my shirt, rising on her toes to drape the coat over my shoulders.

"Jude Colby, stop being stubborn. Come home with me. I cleared my whole schedule today just to come get you."

I pulled the coat off and handed it back, stepping away without a trace of emotion. "No thanks. I'm not cut out to be the other man."

A gust of wind swept past, and I started walking again.

This time, Lena didn't stop me. She just followed, unhurried, keeping pace a few steps behind.

I took what little money I had and went looking for a place to rent, but every door closed in my face. Landlords looked me up and down with open contempt, then shoved me out like a stray, cursing as they went.

Each time, Lena would appear from behind and catch my hand. Her voice carried a quiet exasperation.

"Jude, what are you still fighting for? Why do you have to make this so hard?"

A shiver ran through me. The hallway was damp, mildew creeping up the walls, the air thick with something salty and bitter. I pulled away again.

"I'm not making anything hard for anyone."

I gripped the money in my fist and kept searching.

The sky grew dark, and just before the last of the daylight disappeared, I managed to find a place. The landlord took one look at my ID and started muttering.

"So you're that killer. What, tried to ride someone's coattails, and this is where it got you?"

His sneer widened. "You can stay, but the rent's double."

My heart sank, but I let out a breath of relief. At least I had somewhere to stay.

The room reeked of mold. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work, and by 10:00 pm, it was barely livable.

But when I came back from taking the trash out, the room was full of garbage again. A group of neighbors had crowded around the doorway, still hurling more inside.

"We're not living next to a killer!"

"Get him out of here! Makes my skin crawl just looking at him!"

"I heard he stole his own cousin's woman. He's a real homewrecker!"

"Why'd they even let him out? Should've let him rot in there."

I rushed in to stop them. "That's enough. Keep this up and I'm calling the police."

They hesitated for a second, then smirked and started throwing the garbage at me instead.

"Call the police? You've got some nerve."

"Let's see who'd lift a finger for scum like you."

"We let you move in and this is the thanks we get? You deserve every last bit of it."

I tried to block them, but it was no use. They pelted me with vegetable scraps, rotten eggs, and leftover soup, all of it landing square on me.

The stench clung to every inch of me, foul and rancid. Someone cracked me with a stick, and another shoved a dead rat into my mouth.

Nausea surged up from my gut.

I gagged, gripping the doorframe with both hands as my whole body shook. I didn't know how long it went on, but eventually they tired themselves out. Each one gave me a parting kick and strolled away like nothing happened.

Fear and revulsion closed in from every side. Filthy water was still dripping down my body. I clenched my fists.

Lena's heels clicked against the floor, and she stopped right in front of me. She reached out, almost lazily, her long fingers picking the garbage off me piece by piece. Her fingertips came to rest on my face, the acrylic nails ice cold against my skin, just like her.

"Still want to keep going?"

I couldn't do anything but shake my head, as if something had pinned me in place.

"Then let's go home."

She let out a short laugh and threw herself into my arms.

Being back in the familiar apartment felt surreal. Lena wiped me down gently, her touch soft and careful.

"Jude, if you'd just listened to me from the start, you wouldn't have had to go through any of that. Have you learned your lesson now?"

Her fingertip idly tapped at my Adam's apple, her voice dripping with sweetness.

"You get it now, don't you? Without me, you can't do a single thing."

A tremor ran through my whole body. She'd done it all on purpose. She wanted me to see just how impossible it was without her.

She leaned down and cupped my face in her hands, looking me straight in the eyes.

"Jude, look around. I kept everything just for you. Nothing's changed.

"It's still exactly the way you like it."

Chapter 2

Those eyes of hers were so beautiful. Looking into them, I could almost see the Lena I'd known as a kid, before all the dirty tricks—back when she was just a girl who wanted a decent life.

She'd grown up in an orphanage, but when she reported the director for skimming donations, they threw her out. She was a teenage girl with nowhere to go. She fought stray dogs over scraps and was covered in bruises. She was nothing but skin and bones.

The wind cut right through her, and she had no home.

But I liked her. I took her hand and brought her home, knowing full well I'd catch hell from my grandma for it.

"I can barely keep you fed, and now there's another one? You looking for a smack?"

"She's not my problem. You dragged her in, you take care of her."

Nana talked tough but had a soft heart, and she took Lena in all the same. To make life a little easier, we hauled bricks and cement at construction sites.

Between the two of us, we made 30 dollars a day, and sometimes we didn't even get paid that. Life was hard, but we scraped by.

That was until one of the old crew wanted to bring his nephew on, and we got kicked out for good.

We couldn't hold back the tears. Lena wrapped her arms around my waist, her jaw set and her eyes fierce.

"Don't cry. You've got me. I'm going to give you and Nana a good life.

"People should be fair. We're never going to turn into people like them."

From then on, she threw herself into everything with a drive I'd never seen before. In her senior year of high school, she sold a robotics invention and earned her first real money.

In college, she started a company and went out pitching to every investor who'd listen. I backed her in whatever she wanted to do. Every dollar I earned went to her, and she took me everywhere she went.

Every new city she went to, she'd buy me a gift. She always made time to take me on the Ferris wheel. I was the only person who got to see her like that, with her guard completely down, like a girl with nothing to hide.

At the top of the ride, she'd hold my face in both hands and kiss me, soft and careful.

"Jude Colby, after all these years, thank you for never giving up on me. Trust me, we're going to be happy for the rest of our lives. We'll never, ever be apart."

She turned away plenty of people who tried to cut corners or play dirty. The road was brutal, and it took years of clawing her way up, but she made it.

She always said that when she became a businesswoman, she'd run things with integrity. She'd make sure every person who worked hard got what they deserved.

She did become a businesswoman. But her fairness ended up going to someone else.

At 25, she had her own company. She was the youngest, most prominent CEO of her generation.

She bought a house and put only my name on the deed. She bought the most expensive car on the lot, just as a casual birthday gift for me.

That same year, my cousin Austin Colby turned up at my door, fresh out of the backwoods with nowhere else to go. He stood there in torn-up clothes, stumbling over his words with a thick country drawl, fidgeting like he didn't know what to do with his hands.

Weathered and gaunt, he looked like a wolf that had been run out of the pack.

I was born in those same mountains, to people who couldn't afford to keep me. They had too many kids, so they gave them away, boys and girls alike.

When they gave me up, Austin had just been born. If Nana hadn't taken me in, I probably would have died. That kind of shared history made it impossible not to feel for him.

Lena, who rarely spoke up about these things, hooked her pinky around mine.

"Poor thing. He reminds me of how we used to be.

"Let him stay. It's not like we can't afford it. Think of it as paying it forward for our kids someday."

"The world's not fair to people like us. If we can help even one person, we should."

I was glad she hadn't forgotten where we came from. I truly believed that the girl she'd been at the start would carry us through for a long time.

She pressed a kiss to my throat.

But I had no way of knowing that it was the beginning of Austin's new life, and the beginning of my nightmare.

Chapter 3

Austin moved into our home after that.

Maybe it was out of guilt, but he was always trying to make himself useful, and he kept making a mess of it.

He'd break one of my expensive watches, accidentally throw out a birthday gift Lena had bought me, or ruin one of her designer dresses with the iron. It happened more than once.

But Lena, who had never had patience for carelessness, would actually bend down and comfort him.

She started to change. The woman who practically lived at the office began leaving on time every day.

She carved out an hour each evening to teach Austin how to speak properly, even staying up late to make vocabulary flashcards, guiding him through each word with her hand on his throat so he could feel the sounds.

It bothered me. I suggested hiring a tutor or enrolling him somewhere, but Lena shut it down.

"It's not safe leaving him with strangers. There are so many awful people out there. What if someone takes advantage of him?

"Besides, teaching him reminds me of you when we were kids."

I looked into her eyes, saw how much she meant it, and let it go.

After that, Austin found every excuse to be around Lena, asking her all sorts of odd questions, and she actually had the patience to answer every single one. I chalked it up to him being young and clingy, so I made a point of taking him out myself.

I brought him shopping, took him to upscale restaurants, and introduced him to my friends. I bought him a car, and I even bought him a house.

He grew better looking by the day, and more and more girls took notice. Every now and then, he'd punch my arm and call me his brother. He told me he'd follow me for the rest of his life and do anything I ever asked.

I was happy. I felt like I'd done something right. He was one of the few people in the world I could call family.

Eventually, I told him to leave the housework to the housekeeper, but he still insisted on ironing Lena's clothes himself. He said he didn't know how else to thank us.

I laughed it off, thinking he was just naive. After all, there was no need for thanks between brothers.

Then Nana got sick, and I spent my days at the hospital looking after her. Lena called, her voice soft and pouty, saying she missed me and wanted my cooking.

The way she whined melted something in me, and after several sleepless nights at Nana's bedside, I decided to rush home and cook for her.

That was when I found them. They were on my bed, clothes on the floor, Lena draped over Austin with his chest covered in bite marks.

Something inside me collapsed like a building coming down.

"What the fuck!"

The words ripped out of me before I could think.

I grabbed a chair and swung it straight at Austin, but Lena stepped in front of him, staring me down with ice-cold eyes. She was too small to take a hit like that, so I forced myself to put the chair down.

"Got it out of your system? Are you done with the tantrum? Now get out.

"Stop acting like a lunatic. You're going to scare him."

She sided with Austin without even trying to hide it. I grabbed her wrist and demanded she explain, but she wrenched free.

"Are you ever going to stop? We're already married. What more do you want from me? I said I'd give you a kid. No one's threatening your place.

"Austin's young. Don't bully him."

Austin peered out from behind her, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Jude, don't be mad. I just lost my head for a second.

"But Lena's just so gorgeous, you know? And her perfume, I couldn't help it. I really like her.

"I'll do anything for you, Jude. Anything. Just let me stay."

I clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes shut. Lost his head? He'd do anything for me?

Wonderful, just wonderful!

I lost my mind after that. I turned into the kind of person I would have pitied before. I sent photos of Lena to her business partners and blasted the affair all over social media.

I tracked down every wealthy contact I could find and told them what I'd seen, the same story, the same details, over and over again.

At first people were curious, but soon they started dodging my calls. I was becoming the man who wouldn't stop telling his sad story, the one everyone crossed the street to avoid.

None of it mattered anyway. Most of those people had their own skeletons, and nothing I said could touch Lena.

I spiraled so far I wanted to take them both down with me. I put on a calm face, cooked dinner, and laced it with poison. I figured we'd all go together.

But Lena never brought Austin home that night. She just stayed with me, soothing me with something that almost looked like guilt. For the first time, she sat beside me and gently fed me with her own hands.

I woke up in a hospital bed, over ten pounds lighter.

But Lena never came to see me again.

Chapter 4

Lena hid Austin at her company. To make room for him, she fired me without hesitation and told everyone I'd been the one chasing her, that I was a shameless homewrecker who'd forced my way in.

She said that if it weren't for me, she and Austin would have been happy together.

But she was generous enough not to hold my mistakes against me, apparently. She slotted Austin straight into a director-level position and made it official at a company meeting.

"Austin is mine. He's young, he's got energy, and he's here to learn the ropes. All of you are going to make way for him.

"Anyone who gives him trouble is giving me trouble, and you won't have a job here anymore. Whatever he wants, you give it to him. I'll handle the rest."

I couldn't wrap my head around it. Lena was the girl who once reported an orphanage director for corruption, who swore she'd be a fair businesswoman. She'd thrown all of it away for a man who walked out of the backwoods.

She turned the company into a toy, something to keep Austin entertained. She knew exactly what she was doing.

She knew how hard the people under her worked, how many of them would suffer for it. She just didn't care. Because now, she was the one with all the power, and she was willing to use every bit of it for him.

Lena went back on deals multiple times for his sake, even handing him major projects to cut his teeth on. When he lost money, she didn't blink.

Looking back, I felt like a joke. She'd always told me that positions went to the most capable, so I'd stay up all night perfecting every proposal I ever wrote.

She wouldn't even spare me feedback. Half the partnerships she closed had me working behind the scenes to smooth things over. Every deal I brought in, I'd earned by showing up day after day without fail.

And she'd torn it all down like it was nothing.

I tried to go out and set the record straight, but the way people looked at me was strange and unsettling.

I couldn't take it. I locked myself in my room and flinched at every sound from outside.

I didn't know how many days passed before Lena came back, like she was doing me a favor. She threw a proposal at my feet.

"Did you sabotage this on purpose? It worked fine when you used it, so why can't Austin make it work? He got reamed out by the client because of this.

"You just can't stand to see him succeed, can you?"

My body was already breaking down. I kept shrinking back against the wall.

"I didn't… I'd never—"

She slapped me across the face and ground her heel into my hand. "Now go apologize, and figure out how to fix this. Otherwise…"

She didn't need to finish. The threat was clear enough. She wiped her hand with a tissue, not even bothering to look at me.

"Jude, you need to understand that without me, you're nothing. So don't even think about fighting back.

"If you still want to be my husband, you'll do as you're told."

I wanted to charge at her. I wanted to kill them both. But I couldn't bring myself to walk away, not after all those years of hardship, not when it would mean leaving with nothing.

I dragged my body, which felt like it was falling apart at the seams, and stayed up rewriting the proposal. I went to the client's door three times and got turned away each time.

They said they didn't do business with people who played dirty. They jabbed their fingers in my face and told me I looked like someone who couldn't be trusted.

I begged for half a month. I stood in the pouring rain for three days straight. That was what it took to get one more chance at the partnership.

During all of that, Lena didn't call once. She didn't go to the office either.

She was on vacation with Austin. They walked along the beach hand in hand, shared his leftover lunch, and took photos together.

Lena was happy.

Even though I was the one who wrote the proposal for the new deal, Austin was the one who got to present it.

She'd completely forgotten the man who'd been by her side for over a decade.

Chapter 5

The day Austin closed the deal, Lena was thrilled. She rented a billboard in the next town over and plastered it with photos of the two of them.

They kissed and held each other in front of everyone, then disappeared together until the middle of the night.

I sat in the dead-silent house, staring at the bed, one I'd built with my own hands so she'd sleep more comfortably. It was the same bed where we'd once been happy, now soaked in whatever the two of them left behind.

Lena didn't come home until well past midnight. The faint smell of sandalwood still clung to her skin. She kneeled on the floor, wrapped her arms around me, and nuzzled her face into my chest with soft little whimpers.

I frowned before I could stop myself.

"Austin likes this scent," she offered, like that was supposed to help.

I couldn't hear a word. I just lay on the floor like something that had already given up. She poked my shoulder gently.

"Jude, don't you get it? What you need to do is keep me happy. Austin's just something I keep on the side. You're the one I come home to."

I couldn't hold it in anymore. I shoved her off and forced my voice out. "So you give him the title, and I get stuck with the homewrecker label? I'm the one who ruined things between you two? I'm the villain?"

Lena's brow furrowed. "It's just a reputation. What does it matter? Austin's young and thin-skinned. You taking the blame isn't going to kill you."

I laughed. He was thin-skinned, so I was the one who deserved all of it? Everything bad should fall on me?

I was so tired of it all.

Lena let out a sigh, her hand hovering in the air for a moment before she pulled it back. "I heated some milk for you. It's on the table. Make sure you drink it.

"Get some sleep. Goodnight."

She even kissed my forehead on her way out. But all I felt was completely drained.

The next night, it was raining when Lena burst through the door in a panic and started kissing me like her life depended on it.

I thought she'd changed her mind. My heart stirred for the first time in what felt like forever. I softened and kissed her back, pulling her exhausted body into my arms.

She bit my lip gently. "Jude, Austin hit someone with his car today. You're the best person to take the fall for him."

"What?" I could hear my own voice shaking.

"He missed me so much he wasn't paying attention to the road. He's been so shaken up since last night he can barely talk.

"He's been with me all these years. He can't live without me, and he can't handle that kind of suffering. Just go in for him, it's just a few years.

"I'll pull some strings and get the sentence shortened. I'll come pick you up when it's over, and everything will be exactly the way it is now, okay?"

A wave of rage choked me. I threw her off, shouting, "Lena, do you even hear yourself? My entire life would be ruined!"

"Those rumors already ruined most of it. One more thing isn't going to make a difference."

She raised an eyebrow and even found the time to text Austin back. I threw the window open and pointed outside, shaking with rage.

"Lena, if you make me do this, I'll jump. Right now. You can have me alive or you can have me dead. Pick one."

She glanced out the window, unbothered. "It's the second floor. You'd survive.

"But I'd think hard about what this would do to Nana. An adopted grandson who's a homewrecker and a killer on top of it. Ask yourself if she could take that.

"If you agree, I promise she'll never find out. I'll take care of her. She'll want for nothing."

In that moment, I stopped fighting.

I thought I'd die in there. I was lucky enough that I didn't.

But Nana found out anyway, and it killed her. I never got to see her before she went, and she died believing she'd raised a terrible grandson.

…

When I snapped back to the present at some point, I realized my eyes were burning. Lena was already on her toes, pressing her lips softly to my eyelids.

"Jude, I told you. The moment you got out, you'd still be my husband. Everything would go back to the way it was."

I smiled, easy and light, and wrapped my hand around her waist.

"Sure."