Chapter 3 - Gathering the Ashes
By morning, the house smelled of bleach, fresh coffee, and determination.
Marianne had taken complete control.
The twins were fed, bathed, and sleeping peacefully in clean clothes. The dishes were done. The broken glass was swept away.
When I woke up, I found my sister sitting at the kitchen table, her laptop open, surrounded by stacks of mail I had been too tired to open.
“Sit down. Drink this,” she ordered, sliding a mug of black coffee and a plate of eggs toward me.
I ate for the first time in days. It tasted like survival.
“Daniel has been busy,” Marianne said, her voice dripping with venom. She turned the laptop screen toward me.
It was our joint bank account statement.
My stomach dropped.
The numbers didn't make sense. The balance was drastically lower than it should have been.
“He withdrew ten thousand dollars the day before he left,” Marianne explained coldly. “And look at these credit card charges. VIP tables in Paris. Luxury hotels in Rome. Jewelry stores in Milan.”
“Jewelry?” I choked out. “He didn't buy me anything.”
“He wasn't buying it for you, Claire.”
Marianne reached into her bag and pulled out a manila folder.
“I started digging after you called me. I found the public profile of one of the guys he went on the trip with. He’s not as smart as Daniel about hiding his tags.”
She slid a printed photograph across the table.
My breath hitched in my throat.
It was a picture taken in a nightclub in Ibiza, Spain. The lighting was neon and dark, but the faces were unmistakable.
Daniel was in the center of the frame.
His arms were wrapped tightly around a blonde woman in a tight red dress.
And he was kissing her. Deeply. Passionately.
Around her neck was a brand-new diamond pendant.
I stared at the photo. I waited for the heartbreak to hit me. I waited for the tears to come.
But they didn't.
Instead, a fire ignited in my chest. A deep, raging inferno of clarity.
“Are you going to cry?” Marianne asked softly, watching my face.
“No,” I said, looking up at her. My voice was steady. “I want to destroy him.”
Marianne smiled. It was a terrifying, beautiful smile.
“Good. Let’s get to work.”
For the next 48 hours, we became machines.
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We gathered proof of absolutely everything. We printed every ignored text message. We saved every vacation photo. We documented the bank withdrawals, the unpaid mortgage bill he had hidden, and the medical appointments for the twins he had skipped.
“We have enough,” Marianne said on Tuesday morning. “Now, we call the shark.”
