n leather booth, nursing a whiskey. She looked the same as always-lean, alert, with eyes

notone as I recounted Olivia's confession, Leo

moment. She took a slow sip of her whiskey, h

threat, it was a statement of fact. "I' ll make them disappear. Olivia, the bo

. This was why I kept my distance from her. She lived in a world of shadows and

t... I want to be gone. I want to disappear so completely t

any sign of weakness. "Faking your death is complic

ning. "She said she wants to be a wido

's face. "Alright, little brother. If that

s, trying to create the illusion that I was just taking a short trip. She walke

he placed the carrier on my drafting table, next to the blueprints for a

ol of her betrayal. I felt nothing for him. Not an

livia," I said, not looking at her

"This is our family now. You need to accept it. We can raise him together. People will

child into our marriage, and now she was presenting it as a convenient solution to a probl

will not raise another man' s child

h a look of hurt. It was a performance I now recognized all too we

n and my desperate need to save our marriage that I hadn't seen the calculation in her eyes. I hadn't seen that the self-harm wasn't an act of desperation, but an act of con

ondon. The long weekends she spent "visiting her parents." I had encouraged her

o. They were doctor's appointments. They were a nine-month period where she hid

I been s

oment over the last three years had been a lie. She wasn't just an adulterer. She was a master manipulator, a b

e back to the present. "Don' t do this. Don' t

mistake. The depth of her delusio

and I felt nothing but a cold, hard emp

ne," I said. "For