“I need to talk to you.”
“At midnight?”
“Please.”
I should have closed the door.
Instead, I stepped aside.
She entered the house where Ethan and I had once lived together.
Her eyes moved around the foyer.
Family photographs remained on one wall.
Mostly Lucas.
One of my mother.
None of Ethan.
Sophia noticed.
“I’ve never been here.”
“Congratulations.”
She flinched.
“I deserve that.”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
Then removed something from her coat pocket.
A phone.
“Ethan is looking for me.”
“So?”
“I turned off location sharing.”
I folded my arms.
“Why are you here?”
She looked toward the staircase.
“Is Lucas awake?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Sophia.”
Her eyes filled.
“I didn’t know.”
“About what?”
“That he was lying about the divorce.”
I laughed once.
“Which part?”
“He told me you knew about us before he moved out.”
My face went cold.
“What?”
“He said your marriage was effectively over.”
“That’s standard.”
“He said you had separate bedrooms.”
“For two weeks after I learned he was cheating.”
“He said two years.”
I stared at her.
“He said you refused counseling.”
“We went for eight months.”
“He told me you threatened to take Lucas away if he left.”
“I begged him to attend soccer games.”
Her face collapsed.
“I believed him.”
“That was convenient.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
She looked down.
“I knew he was married.”
There it was.
No excuses.
“I knew Lucas existed. I knew you existed. Ethan told me the marriage was dead, but I knew there was a marriage.”
I waited.
She whispered,
“I’m sorry.”
I had imagined this moment.
For months after discovering the affair, I fantasized about Sophia apologizing.
I thought it would feel triumphant.
Instead, I felt tired.
“Why are you here?”
She unlocked her phone.
“Because the recording wasn’t the first time Ethan talked about money.”
My heart accelerated.
“What?”
“He asked me to help with something.”
“Help how?”
“My uncle works in private wealth management. Ethan wanted introductions.”
“When?”
“Before your divorce was final.”
I stared at her.
“You knew he was hiding assets?”
“No.”
“But the recording—”
“I thought he was delaying tax recognition.”
“That sentence sounded rehearsed.”
“It was what he told me.”
She wiped her eyes.
“Tonight I started putting everything together.”
“What exactly?”
She opened a folder on her phone.
Screenshots.
Emails.
Account names.
Messages.
“He used my laptop twice. I still have synced email fragments.”
I looked at her.
“Why didn’t you delete them?”
“I didn’t know they mattered.”
She handed me the phone.
One message contained an attachment title.
MBB Family Holdings Agreement.
I frowned.
“What is MBB?”
“I don’t know.”
Another email referenced a trust.
Another referenced a transfer from an entity called Northstar Advisory LLC.
“Does Rachel know about this?”
“Who?”
“My attorney.”
“No.”
I reached for my phone.
Sophia stopped me.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
There is always more when a man has spent years believing he is smarter than everyone around him.
She opened a photograph.
It showed a document on Ethan’s desk.
At the top was a name.
BENNETT LEGACY TRUST.
I stopped breathing.
“Where did you get this?”
“I took the picture six months ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw your last name.”
“What is this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why was it on Ethan’s desk?”
“I asked him.”
“What did he say?”
Sophia swallowed.
“He said it belonged to an old client.”
“No.”
“What?”
“Bennett is my name.”
“I know.”
“That isn’t an old client.”
She stared at me.
“What are you saying?”
I enlarged the photograph.
There, beneath the title, was a line I could barely read.
