Chapter 5 - The Ambush at Sunset
Two days passed in quiet seclusion.
Dr. Morrison confirmed that the twins were flourishing. Their heartbeats were strong, steady, and vibrant. I spent forty-eight hours sleeping ten hours a night, eating nourishing meals, and turning off my phone.
Julian kept the world at bay. He renegotiated the Keystone contracts, legally separating my intellectual property from Daniel’s name, and initiated the formal restructuring of the firm.
On the third afternoon, I needed to visit our penthouse one last time.
My private legal counsel, Marcus Kane, accompanied me, along with two private security guards hired by Julian. I needed to retrieve my personal documents, my grandmother’s jewelry, and the architectural hand-drawings I kept in my private home studio.
When our car pulled up to the luxury high-rise, it was dusk. The sky was bruised with streaks of violet and burning orange.
We took the private elevator directly up. When the doors opened into the foyer, my heart seized for a fraction of a second.
The penthouse was in ruins.
Not from violence, but from neglect. The untouched anniversary cake was still rotting under a glass dome on the counter. The cream-colored box and the ultrasound scan were gone from the dining table, but empty scotch bottles cluttered the marble island.
And sitting on the floor of the hallway, his back pressed against the wall of my locked studio, was Daniel.
He hadn't shaved. His eyes were hollow, sunken, and haunted. In his lap, he was clutching the tiny ivory knitted booties from the cream-colored box, his thumbs stroking the soft wool over and over again, as if trying to summon life from the yarn.
When he heard our footsteps, he scrambled to his feet, nearly falling over his own feet.
"Evelyn," he wept. The sound was pathetic, a wounded animal crawling toward a source of light. "Evie... you came back. You’re home."
Marcus, my lawyer, immediately stepped in front of me, but I gently raised a hand, stopping him.
"Wait by the elevator, Marcus," I said softly. "Give me five minutes."
"Evelyn, are you sure?" Marcus whispered.
"I’m sure."
The guards and Marcus stepped back into the entry hall. I walked slowly toward Daniel, stopping several yards away.
"I came for my blueprints and my jewelry, Daniel," I said. "Nothing else."
Daniel dropped to his knees right there on the hardwood floor. The sight of a six-foot-two, classically handsome, multimillionaire executive kneeling in crumpled slacks would have shocked anyone who knew him.
To me, it was simply tragic.
"Don't do this, Evie," he begged, tears streaming unchecked through the stubble on his cheeks. "I know Clara lied. I know she’s a monster. I went to her apartment and I threw her out of my life forever! I told her I’d put her behind bars if she ever came near our family again! I love *you*. It was always you, Evelyn! I was just stupid—I was addicted to being needed! I thought you didn't need me because you were so brilliant, so capable, so strong!"
"And so you punished me for it," I said, my voice steady.
"No! I didn't mean to punish you!"
"You made me carry the weight of two people while you carried Clara’s parasol in the rain," I said, looking down at him. "You took every ounce of my patience, every evening I spent alone, every sacrifice I made for your career, and you treated it as a given. You thought my strength was an infinite well you could poison without consequence."
He reached out, trying to touch the hem of my trousers, but pulled back when I took a step back.
"The babies, Evelyn..." he sobbed, pressing the little knitted booties to his chest. "Our twins. Please don't take them away from me. Let me be their father. Let me be your husband. We can leave this city. We can sell the firm. We can buy that villa in Tuscany you always sketched. We can start over!"
"A foundation cracked to the bedrock cannot be patched with Tuscany, Daniel," I whispered. "You don't rebuild on rubble. You clear the ground."
"I will die without you," he choked out, slamming his forehead against the floorboards. "Evelyn, please! I will die!"
"You won't die, Daniel," I said, my voice rich with finality. "You’ll just have to learn how to be strong. The way you forced me to be for five years."
I unlocked the studio door, packed my portfolio and jewelry box into a leather bag, and walked back to the foyer without looking at him again.
May you like
As the elevator doors closed, his screams of anguish echoed down the hallway, but for the first time in five years, the sound did not pull on my soul.
***
