Married To My Husband’s Rival

CHAPTER 11: Yes Or No

WREN POV

“Someone broke into June’s apartment!”

I was already at Seth’s door before I even finished the sentence. I knocked twice, hard, and he opened it like he had been awake the whole time.

“What?” he said.

“June just called me. She came home and someone had been inside her apartment. Nothing was stolen. No broken locks. But they left something on her kitchen table.”

“What did they leave?”

“A photo of me. Through your window. Taken tonight.”

Seth did not say anything for one second. Then he stepped back and grabbed his phone off the nightstand.

“Come in.”

I walked in. He was already dialing.

“Cal,” he said into the phone. “Get up here. Now.”

He hung up and looked at me.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m standing, aren’t I?”

He almost smiled. Not quite.

“Sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down.”

“Wren.”

“Fine.”

I sat on the edge of the chair near his window. My hands were in my lap and I kept looking at them like they belonged to someone else. The city outside was doing its normal thing. Lights everywhere. Cars moving. Like nothing was wrong anywhere in the world.

Cal knocked four minutes later. I counted.

Seth let him in and the three of us moved to the kitchen. Cal had a laptop already open before he even pulled out a chair.

“Talk to me,” Cal said.

Seth told him everything I had told him. Cal’s face did not move. He just typed.

“The building across the street has external cameras on the east face,” Cal said. “Give me two minutes.”

He got the footage in less than that. I don’t know how. I didn’t ask.

We all leaned in toward the screen. The footage was grainy, the kind that looks fine until you actually need to see something clearly. Cal scrolled back to around nine that evening and slowed it down.

There.

A figure on the rooftop across the street. Dark jacket. Standing still. A long lens camera pointed straight at us.

My stomach dropped.

“That’s not someone who just decided to do this tonight,” I said.

“No,” Cal said. “That person knew exactly where to stand. They knew which window was yours. They knew the angle.”

“How?”

“Either they’ve been watching the building for a while, or someone gave them the layout.”

I looked at Seth.

“Someone gave them information,” I said.

Seth nodded slowly. “That’s what it looks like.”

“Can you see the face?” I asked Cal.

“No. They moved before the camera could catch it. Gone clean. No stumbling, no hesitation.” Cal sat back. “This is not a first time. Whoever this is has done this kind of thing before.”

The kitchen was quiet for a moment.

“They went into June’s apartment after this?” Seth asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Nothing broken. Nothing missing. Just the photo on the table.”

“That’s a message,” Cal said.

“I know it’s a message,” I said. “What does it mean?”

“It means they’re close,” Seth said. “And they want you to know it.”

I pressed my lips together. My chest was tight and I was not going to let that show. Not right now.

“We need to move June,” I said.

“First thing in the morning,” Seth said. “She’s not staying in that apartment.”

I already had my phone out.

June picked up on the first ring.

“Pack a bag,” I said.

“Wren, what is going on?”

“Someone left that photo to scare me. I don’t think you’re the target but I’m not willing to find out.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure I’m not taking chances with you. Pack enough for a few days and don’t open the door for anyone until morning.”

Silence on her end. Then, “Okay.”

“Okay,” I said.

I hung up.

Cal closed his laptop and stood. “I’ll run the rooftop angle and the building access logs tonight. If anything was left behind up there, we’ll find it.”

“Thank you,” Seth said.

Cal looked at me before he left. “We’ll figure out who this is.”

I nodded.

Then he was gone and it was just me and Seth in the kitchen at whatever time it was in the middle of the night.

Seth moved to the counter. I heard the click of the kettle. I looked up.

“You’re making tea.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know you did that.”

“I do it when I can’t do anything else.”

He set two cups down. Didn’t ask if I wanted one. Just made it.

I wrapped both hands around the cup when he slid it toward me. Hot. Good.

We sat there for a minute without talking.

Then I asked him.

“Do you think this is Diane?”

He thought about it. He actually thought about it instead of answering fast.

“Possibly,” he said. “She has the resources for it.”

“But?”

“But there’s the Bree angle too. She’s been in the city. She has her own reasons to want you unsettled.”

“So you don’t know.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t know yet.”

At least he didn’t lie.

I looked at my tea. Six days. It had only been six days since I said yes in that gala corridor with my shoes in my hand and my whole life falling apart behind me. Six days and I was already sitting in a midnight kitchen with a man I barely knew talking about who might be watching me through windows.

“Seth.”

“Yeah.”

“When this is over,” I said. “When Diane falls and the acquisition goes through and all of it is done. What happens to us?”

He was quiet.

“I mean the deal,” I said quickly. “What happens to the arrangement.”

“We discussed that in the contract.”

“I know what the contract says. I’m asking what you think.”

He looked at me. His eyes were steady the way they always were and I hated that I could never fully read them.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that’s a conversation for when we get there.”

Not an answer. But not a dismissal either.

I nodded and drank my tea.

Before I went to bed I picked up my phone one more time.

I opened Tasha’s contact. Stared at it for a second. Then I typed.

“I know you’ve been talking to Diane Briggs. We need to have a conversation eventually.”

I put the phone face down on the nightstand and went to wash my face.

Twenty minutes later I checked it.

The message had a read receipt.

She opened it.

She read it and said nothing.

Not a single word back.

I stared at that little “read” notification for a long time. My chest hurt in a way that had nothing to do with the stalker and the photo and the midnight security footage.

This was Tasha.

Eight years.

Eight years of knowing everything about me and she sat on the other end of that message and went quiet.

I put the phone down again.

Didn’t cry.

Went to sleep.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​