Episode8
1167 Words
Isabella's POV
The letter trembled in my hands.
“He didn’t fall. He was pushed. Just like your father.”
“Don’t trust anyone. Not even the ones who say they love you.”
I stared at the words so long they began to blur, ink running into ink, like spilled secrets bleeding across the page.
Someone knew. Someone was watching me. Worse, someone was playing me.
But who?
Alex? No — this wasn’t his voice. This wasn’t his style. He threatened in person. Blunt. Loud. Brutal. Not like this. This was careful. Calculated. Dangerous.
I turned the envelope over again. No return address. No markings. No prints. Whoever sent it had planned this carefully.
A knock on the door jolted me out of my thoughts.
I stuffed the letter under my pillow just as Nathaniel walked in, hair damp from the shower, shirt sleeves rolled up, phone in hand.
“Hey,” he said softly, as if measuring my mood. “You alright?”
I nodded. “Just tired.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Me too.”
His phone buzzed in his hand. He glanced at it, sighed again, then sat on the edge of the bed beside me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t shake.
He hesitated. “The court hearing.”
I blinked. “What hearing?”
“My ex-mother-in-law. Her lawyers filed an emergency request. They want a judge to consider removing the girls from my custody until the case is resolved.”
The room dropped several degrees.
“They want to take them now?” I whispered.
He nodded. “I have until Friday to respond. They’re claiming my remarriage was ‘reckless’ and that you—” he looked at me, hurt flashing in his eyes, “—aren’t fit to be their mother.”
“She’s insane. She has no idea how much you love them—how much we do.”
He shook his head. “They don’t care about that. They care about perception. Headlines. And she has money to make any story look true.”
My stomach churned.
This wasn’t part of the plan. I never thought I’d be the reason those girls might be taken away from the only real parent they had left.
“What can we do?” I asked.
“I’ve already got my lawyer drafting a response,” he said. “But I need to show that this marriage is strong. That you’re not just some woman I brought in out of desperation.”
I swallowed hard. “So... what? We pretend harder?”
He met my eyes. “No. We be stronger.”
My breath caught in my throat. This wasn’t just a game to him anymore.
And if I wasn’t careful, it wouldn’t be to me either.
The next morning, the mansion buzzed with more tension than usual.
Emily and Natasha were unusually quiet at breakfast. Natasha picked at her waffles, and Emily clung to her teddy bear like it held the answer to everything.
Nathaniel, seated at the head of the table, kept checking his phone.
“They know something’s wrong,” I said to him under my breath.
He nodded. “Their grandmother called last night. Told them she’d be seeing them ‘very soon.’”
My stomach turned.
“I don’t want them confused, Jenna,” he said. “I need them grounded. Safe. Loved.”
“I can do that,” I replied quietly. “I want to do that.”
His eyes softened. “Then maybe we should make it official.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“A second wedding. A real one. Public. Legal. No contract.”
My heart slammed into my ribs.
He was serious.
“People would see it as legitimate,” he continued. “It’ll shut her down in court. And the girls... they’d feel secure. Like everything is finally real.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it again.
“Nathaniel, I—”
The sound of a door slamming made us both turn.
Henry appeared at the edge of the dining room, his expression tight.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, voice low. “We have a problem.”
Nathaniel stood. “What is it?”
“There was an incident outside the courthouse this morning. Someone tried to follow one of our paralegals. We believe it was someone from your ex’s legal team. Or Alex’s.”
I stood too. “Why would Alex care about the custody case?”
Henry looked at me carefully. “Because if the children are removed from this house, it creates instability. Alex thrives on instability. It gives him room to act.”
“Act how?” Nathaniel asked, jaw clenched.
Henry didn’t answer. He just handed over a flash drive.
“This was mailed to the house. No return address.”
Another anonymous delivery.
Another warning.
Nathaniel took it and motioned for us to go to his study.
I followed, heart pounding, wondering if the message inside would destroy everything — or save it.
The screen came alive as the video loaded. The footage was grainy, shot from a distance, but the image was clear enough.
Davis Blackwood — walking beside the pool.
And then a figure — blurry, hard to make out — darting behind him.
A shove.
Davis tumbling into the water.
Nathaniel leaned forward. “Pause it.”
The figure was cloaked. Unrecognizable.
He stared at the screen for a long moment, eyes narrowed.
“…That’s not Jenna,” he said finally, quieter than before.
I didn’t breathe.
His voice wasn’t exactly relieved. It was measured. Too careful. As if he needed to say it — not just to me, but to himself.
“But someone used our plan,” I said softly. “Someone knew.”
He turned toward me, gaze sharper now. “What plan?”
I froze.
Damn it.
“What do you mean?” he asked again, slower this time. Less curious. More calculating.
I scrambled. “I mean... I heard Sophie joking about it. Before the party. About pushing Davis as a prank. I didn’t think anything of it.”
He studied me then — too closely. Like he was mentally filing the moment away.
“I need to know I can trust you, Jenna.”
I forced a smile. “You can.”
But even as I said it, I could feel the quiet shift in him.
He was watching me differently now.
Not just as the woman he cared about…
…but as someone who might not be telling the whole truth.
That night, another envelope appeared. Same ink. Same smell.
I waited until I was alone in the bathroom to open it.
Inside: a single line.
“You’re not the only one pretending.”
I gripped the edge of the sink to stay upright.
Someone was watching me.
Someone knew what I was doing.
And they were getting closer.
To be continued...
- Writer
