Chapter Five
812 Words
That same night, I texted Aaron.
“Send me the address. Now.”
He sent it in less than ten seconds.
The mansion on Ocean Wells Drive.
The one we chose together eight years ago.
The one I walked through barefoot, picking marble tiles and light fixtures, laughing because I thought it would be my forever home.
I drove there alone.
Black SUV. Windows completely dark. 11 p.m.
The streets were empty and quiet.
Aaron was waiting outside the main gate.
He wore a grey hoodie pulled up over his head. No security guards. No lights on him. He looked like a ghost standing in the dark.
I stopped the car and rolled the window down just a little.
“Keys,” I said.
He put the house keys in my hand without one word. His fingers were ice cold.
I drove slowly up the long driveway. White stones crunched under the tires. I parked right in front of the big double doors and walked inside.
Same cold marble floors.
and huge crystal chandelier hanging above me.
Same smell: expensive candles, wood polish, and lies.
Aaron had told me in the car on the way here, voice flat like a robot:
“Lucy is upstairs sleeping. She’s seven months pregnant. She’s tired all the time.”
I walked straight to the master bedroom.
The bed was enormous. White sheets. Lucy was sleeping on the left side, curled up under a blanket, one hand on her round stomach.
I didn’t look at her long.
I went into the walk-in closet.
Her clothes hung on the left—designer dresses, soft colours.
His suits on the right—dark, perfect, expensive.
I left the bedroom and went room by room.
I opened every drawer, every cupboard.
I found everything that used to be mine: The diamond necklace he gave me on my birthday.
The red silk robe I wore the morning he proposed.
and dresses he once tore off me because he couldn’t wait.
The perfume he said only I could wear.
I carried everything to the middle of the marble floor in the hallway and made a big pile.
Then I took the bottle of his favourite whiskey from the bar—twenty-five-year-old Macallan, the one he bragged about—and poured it all over the pile. The strong smell filled the air.
I took a match from my pocket.
Struck it.
Dropped it.
The fire started small, then grew fast. Orange and blue flames danced on silk and diamonds.
Aaron stood in the doorway. Eyes huge. Mouth open. He didn’t move neither did he speak.
I looked at him across the fire.
“Tomorrow morning the movers come,” I said. “Everything that belongs to Lucy goes into storage. You keep one small guest room with one bed. The rest of this house is mine whenever I want it.”
He swallowed hard.
“You… you’re moving in?” His voice was tiny.
“No,” I said. “I just want you to wake up every day in a house that doesn’t feel like yours anymore.”
I stepped over the small fire, close enough that he could feel the heat.
I walked down the hallway and stopped at the nursery door.
It was open a little.
Pale yellow walls. White crib already built. Tiny baby clothes folded in neat piles. A rocking chair in the corner.
I felt it hit me then—like a hard kick in the chest.
The memory of my own stomach after the clinic.
I closed the nursery door very quietly.
Downstairs, I went to the big wedding photo on the wall.
Their wedding day.
Lucy in a long white dress. Aaron smiling like he owned the world.
I took the heavy frame off the wall.
Turned it around.
Took my red lipstick from my bag and wrote on the white back in big letters:
REMEMBER THE BLUE DRESS.
Then I hung the photo back up—but facing the wall, so only the message showed.
I walked to the front door.
Aaron followed me like a lost dog.
At the gate I stopped and turned.
“One more thing,” I said.
He waited, eyes on the ground.
“Starting tomorrow, you call me Miss Voss. In front of every person. Every time. Always.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Said nothing.
I got back in the SUV.
Rolled the window up.
Drove away slow.
Behind me, the fire alarm finally started screaming loud into the night.
Tasha was waiting at my penthouse when I got home.
Two glasses of red wine already poured.
I told her everything—every word, every flame.
She lifted her glass high.
“To ruining lives and making money.”
I smiled and clinked my glass against hers.
We drank.
Tomorrow the real games begin.
- Writer
