ALMOST TOO LATE TO FIGHT

EPISODE4

She knew. The question was — what was she going to do about it?

Sera didn't sleep that night.

Not even close.

She lay on her side of the bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the city outside the window. Car horns. A siren somewhere far away. The low hum of the building settling around her like it always did after midnight.

Her phone sat face-up on the nightstand. Marcus's text still on the screen.

I remember the photograph.

She had read it maybe twenty times since she got home. Each time she read it, something shifted slightly in her chest. Not quite anger. Not quite relief. Something in between that she didn't have a clean word for.

She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

Dominic was lying in a hospital bed, pretending to have lost three years of memory, and his own assistant had just told her the truth in four words. Why? What did Marcus gain from that? He was loyal to Dominic above everything. She had always known that. In three years of marriage, Marcus had never once stepped out of that loyalty.

So why now?

She picked up her phone and typed: Why did you tell me?

She watched the screen. Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Then appeared again.

Then his reply came through.

Because you deserve to choose with your eyes open.

Sera read it once. Read it again. Then she set the phone face-down on the nightstand, turned onto her side, and stared at the wall until the light outside her window started to change from black to grey.

She never slept.

By eight o'clock she was showered, dressed, and back at the hospital.

She bought coffee from the cart outside the entrance because the hospital coffee was genuinely terrible and she had stopped punishing herself for small things. She walked through the lobby, took the elevator to the third floor, and stopped outside his door.

She could hear movement inside. He was already awake.

She pushed the door open.

Dominic was sitting up in bed, a breakfast tray on the table beside him. The food was mostly untouched. The coffee cup was half empty. He looked better than yesterday. The cut on his jaw had already begun to close. He had clearly asked someone for a comb because his hair was neater, though not quite back to its usual precision.

He looked up when she walked in. Something moved across his face. Warm. Quick. Then it settled back into something more careful.

"You came back," he said.

"I said I would."

"You did." He watched her pull the chair closer and sit down. "You keep your word."

"Is that surprising?"

He considered that for a moment. His eyes stayed on her, steady and unhurried. "No. I don't think it is."

Sera set her coffee on the edge of his tray and crossed her legs. She looked at him the way she looked at a building plan when something didn't line up. Patient. Methodical. Waiting for the mistake to show itself.

"How did you sleep?" she asked.

"Badly." He reached for his coffee cup. "I kept reaching for something that wasn't there."

She let that sit for a moment without responding to it. Then she said, "I have some questions."

He nodded. "Of course."

"What's the name of your company?"

"Hale Global Enterprises."

"Who runs your legal department?"

"Sandra Park."

"Your assistant before Marcus?"

"James. He left for a competitor about four years ago."

"Your mother's birthday?"

"March fourteenth."

Sera nodded slowly. She picked up her coffee, took a small sip, and kept her eyes on him over the rim of the cup. "That's impressive," she said. "For a man who lost three years of memory."

Not a flicker. Not even a small one. "Those facts are older than three years. Procedural memory often stays intact after trauma. Long-term recall tends to survive better than recent episodic memory."

"You've been reading about your condition."

"Wouldn't you?"

She held his gaze. He held hers right back. Neither of them blinked for a long moment.

"Tell me about the night of the accident," she said.

"I don't remember it."

"Where were you driving from?"

"I don't remember."

"Where were you going?"

Something shifted. Barely. The smallest tightening around his eyes, gone in less than a second. "I don't remember, Sera."

She smiled at him. The same polite, pleasant smile she had spent three years using at his business dinners when someone said something she didn't believe. "I'm going to get breakfast. Do you want anything?"

"I'm fine."

"I'll be back in an hour." She stood, picked up her bag, and walked out.

Marcus was in the family room at the end of the corridor.

She had expected that. She had actually counted on it. Marcus was thorough. He had sent that text knowing she would come back this morning, and he would have made sure he was here when she did.

She sat down across from him. Set her coffee on the table between them. Looked at him.

He looked tired. Really tired, in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.

"Tell me everything," she said.

Marcus exhaled. He turned his coffee cup in his hands slowly, looking at it rather than at her. Then he looked up.