My husband whispered, “I love you,” wrapped both hands around my waist, and shoved me backward into the fountain in front of everyone at our wedding.

The morning sun crept over the horizon, casting long, gray shadows across the hardwood floors of the apartment I had called home for the last three years.

It didn't look like a home anymore. It looked like a crime scene.

Victoria had coordinated with a private digital forensics specialist named Marcus Vance, a former cyber-intelligence investigator with broad shoulders, silver-streaked hair, and eyes that missed nothing. Marcus walked through the apartment carrying an RF signal detector and a laser scanner, sweeping the baseboards, the smoke detectors, and the crown molding.

Every few minutes, the device emitted a sharp, high-pitched *chirp*.

"Living room bookshelf," Marcus said calmly, reaching behind a row of architectural textbooks. He extracted a matte-black cylinder no larger than the tip of my pinky finger. "High-definition pinhole lens. Hardwired into the wall socket's electrical line for continuous power. Internal flash storage with automatic Wi-Fi burst transmission."

He placed the device into an anti-static evidence bag.

I sat on the edge of the dining room chair, my arms wrapped around myself. Every chirp of Marcus's detector felt like a needle under my fingernails.

"Bedroom clock," Marcus called out five minutes later. "Chambered toward the bed. Audio pickup within a twenty-foot radius."

"Bathroom vanity," he said ten minutes after that. "Mounted inside the air intake vent directly opposite the shower."

Maya, who had accompanied us with two large cardboard boxes for my clothes, dropped a stack of sweaters onto the floor, her hands shaking with rage. "The shower? He put a camera in the bathroom vent? That sick, disgusting monster!"

"Don't touch the surfaces, Miss Lin," Victoria instructed from the doorway. She was photographing every location Marcus uncovered, cataloging the serial numbers and the line-of-sight angles. "This establishes gross voyeurism under Title 18. This isn't just a civil tort anymore. Donald Thorne and Ethan Bradley just handed us the keys to a federal indictment."

Suddenly, the front door rattled violently.

The lock clicked, the handle turned, and the heavy door flew open.

Ethan stood in the entrance, looking disheveled, unwashed, and manic. He had posted bail—undoubtedly paid by his mother or an advance from one of his online management agencies. His tuxedo had been swapped for a crumpled hoodie and jeans, his eyes bloodshot, his jaw covered in dark stubble.

Behind him stood Evelyn, clutching a designer handbag like a shield, her face twisted in bitter indignation.

"Get out of my apartment!" Ethan snarled, taking two aggressive strides into the foyer before freezing at the sight of Marcus Vance holding an evidence bag containing three miniature camera lenses.

Ethan’s face went entirely white.

"Step back over the threshold, Mr. Bradley," Victoria said, stepping smoothly between Ethan and the living room. "You were served with an emergency temporary restraining order three hours ago at the county detention center. If your foot touches this hardwood, you are in violation of a court order."

"This is my apartment!" Ethan screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria. "My name is on the sub-lease! You have no right to steal my equipment!"

"The primary master lease is held exclusively by Claire Montgomery," Victoria replied, pulling a laminated document from her folder and holding it before his face. "And this is a judicial preservation order signed by Judge Hastings at eight o'clock this morning. Every digital storage device, hard drive, router, and cloud relay on these premises is now under federal evidence custody."

Ethan looked past Victoria, his wild eyes locking onto mine.

"Claire! Please! Talk to me!" he begged, dropping to his knees near the doorframe, his hands clasped together in an agonizing parody of remorse. "I did this for us! You know how hard it was watching all our friends buy three-million-dollar brownstones while we were stuck renting? I wanted to give you the life you deserved! I wanted to show the world how incredible you were!"

"By putting a camera in my bathroom vent?" I asked, standing up from the dining chair. My voice was completely flat, devoid of the tears he had monetized for months. "By hiding my grandmother's necklace so you could film me sobbing on the floor?"

Ethan flinched. His mouth opened, closed, and opened again. "That... that was Donald's idea! Donald said we needed an emotional through-line! Claire, I love you! You're my wife!"

"She is not your wife," Evelyn snapped, grabbing Ethan by the arm and trying to hoist him up. She glared at me with pure venom. "You ungrateful little girl! My son took you into his life, introduced you to high society, gave you a platform that millions of people would kill for, and you treat him like a common criminal over a little bath water and some cameras? You should be thanking him!"

"Evelyn," I said quietly, looking at the woman who had hugged me at the rehearsal dinner twelve hours ago. "Your son forged my signature on a commercial loan of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And when the forensic audit finishes today, we’re going to see how much of my trust fund he transferred into his private offshore gambling accounts."

Evelyn froze. She turned her head slowly toward Ethan. "What did she say? Ethan... what gambling accounts?"

Ethan didn't look at his mother. He stared at me, his eyes narrowing into cold, venomous hatred. The boyish lover, the charming fiancé, the apologetic husband—all the masks melted away, leaving only the hollow, selfish core of a digital predator.

"You think you’re smart, Claire?" Ethan whispered, rising slowly to his feet. "You think your fancy lawyer is going to save you? Donald Thorne owns the media landscape. He owns the platforms. He owns the algorithms. By tonight, the internet will have forgotten about your little fountain sob story. They’ll be watching the leaks. And you will never show your face in this city again."

"Thank you, Mr. Bradley," Victoria said, tapping her phone screen where an audio recorder had captured every syllable. "That constitutes witness intimidation in the presence of an officer of the court. Marcus, call the precinct."

Ethan cursed, lunged back into the hallway, and dragged his mother toward the elevator as the heavy doors of the stairwell slammed behind them.

I stood in the center of the living room, listening to the echoing clang of the elevator gates.

"Marcus," I said, turning to the investigator. "Can you trace where the master cloud server is hosted?"

Marcus looked up from his scanner, a faint, dangerous smirk touching the corners of his mouth. "Not only can I trace it, Miss Montgomery. With the warrants Victoria secured this morning, I can lock Donald Thorne out of his own mainframe."