Behind The Mask

Chapter 31: The Final Thread

POV: Fiona

I stood frozen in the hallway, staring at the door of the master suite.

The oak door was thick and sound-dampened, but it didn't matter. The rhythmic creaking of the wood and the high, breathy sounds of Camilla’s voice drifted out into the silence of the mansion.

Ten minutes ago, I thought I was untouchable.

I had walked into this house two hours earlier. I'd looked at the portraits on the wall and felt nothing. I'd walked past the study where Maxwell usually got a glass of whiskey and felt nothing. I thought the armor I had built around myself was completely impenetrable. I thought I only felt cold, numb disgust for the man inside that room.

I was wrong.

As I stood there listening to my husband with another woman, a sharp pain ripped straight through my chest. It wasn't a dull ache of grief. It was like a blade sliding between my ribs. My breath caught, and for a second I couldn't inhale. My heart shattered into jagged pieces.

I hated myself for it.

I hated that it hurt. I hated that after everything, I could still feel this. I hated that a part of me, small, stupid and buried, had been listening for something else.

But standing in the dark, with the sound of Camilla’s voice wrapping around my husband's name, I was finally forced to face the ugly truth I had been hiding from myself.

Buried deep down, beneath all my anger, my silence, and my newfound independence, there had been a tiny thread of hope. It was a stupid, foolish hope just as fragile. A hope that maybe the desperate, tortured look in his eyes at the gala had been real. A hope that maybe the man I had fallen in love with years ago was still alive inside of him somewhere, fighting to get back to me.

A hope that if I just held on long enough, if I just proved I was strong enough, useful enough, he would choose me over the version of himself that had been rotting because of his wealth.

But as Maxwell let out another low groan behind the door, that final thread of hope snapped.

It was dead. He was dead to me.

I didn't shed a single tear.

The sadness was there, waiting, but it never made it past my throat. It was instantly swallowed by a wave of pure survival instinct. This was the same instinct that had gotten me out of Paris with nothing but my passport and burner phone. The same instinct that made me transform the Horizon.

Maxwell thought he could control the narrative. He always did.

If I simply left, he would tell his grandfather I was crazy. He would tell the board I'd abandoned him in a fit of emotion. He would tell the press I couldn't handle the pressure of being Mrs Jordan. He would spin the story to make himself the victim, just like he always did. He'd paint me as the bad wife who left him when he needed her the most.

Not this time.

My hands moved before my brain caught up. I reached into my small clutch and pulled out my phone. The screen lit up with a faint blue glow. I opened the voice memo app. My hand wasn't shaking anymore. It was perfectly steady.

I pressed the red record button and held the phone close to the crack in the doors. The microphone picked up everything.

I heard Camilla first. “Oh, Maxwell”, she whimpered, and the way she said his name made my stomach turn. It was for the version of him that wanted to believe he was still wanted, still desired.

Then I heard him. A low groan that I recognized from a lifetime ago, when it had meant something different. When it had meant me.

I stood in the hallway for three full minutes.

I recorded every sigh, every moan, and every whispered name. I recorded the creak of the bed frame against the wall, the wet sound of skin against skin, the way he said “Fiona” once, low and slurred, before correcting himself with a laugh.

I recorded the undeniable, filthy proof of exactly what happened in the Jordan mansion when the cameras were turned off.

When I was satisfied, I stopped recording. The red light blinked off. The silence that followed was worse than the noise had been.

I saved the audio file under a name no one can trace. I locked it behind a password that was sixteen characters long, a mix of letters and numbers. Then I opened the encrypted channel to Gabriel's secure server and uploaded it. The upload bar crawled slowly across the screen. When it hit one-hundred percent, I felt something in my chest unclench.

I turned my back in the master suite and walked away.

When I reached my guest room in the East Wing, I didn't hesitate.

I unzipped my gown and let it fall to the floor. I stepped out of it like I was shedding skin. I left it there in a pile of silk. I dressed quickly in a simple black sweater, jeans, and a pair of comfortable boots.

I reached into the closet and pulled out the same black leather bag I had packed in that Paris motel. The leather was scuffed, the zipper still a little stiff. I didn't take a single piece of my clothing or jewelry.

The only thing I put inside my bag was my laptop and my UN passport.

I zipped the bag shut and slung it over my shoulder.

I walked down the staircase for the very last time.

Each step felt deliberate. I counted them in my head, not because I needed to, but because I wanted to remember the number. Thirty-two steps down. Thirty-two steps out of this place. The house was completely silent again. Just the sound of my boots and the faint rustle of the bag against my back.

It felt like a tomb.

I reached the front foyer, gripped the brass handle of the front door, and pulled it open.

A rush of freezing wind hit my face. It was 4:00 AM. The sky above New York City was black with stars I couldn't name. The dawn was still hours away.

I stepped out into the cold night and pulled the door shut behind me.

The loud click echoed through the driveway.

I didn't call the driver. He was probably asleep. I didn't look back at the house. I didn't let myself. If I looked back, I might give myself an excuse to hesitate.

I just started walking toward the front gates, the soles of my boots making soft sounds against the gravel.

The iron gates were still closed, but I had the code. I punched it in and the gate swung open with a slow groan.

I pulled my sweater tighter around me and kept walking, disappearing into the shadows of the city, leaving Maxwell Jordan entirely behind.