VESPER POV
He was standing.
My husband—the dying man, the invalid, the billionaire who couldn't walk—was standing at the window like he'd done it a thousand times before.
"You're standing," I whispered.
Callahan didn't move. Didn't even blink. Just stared at me with those mercury-gray eyes, and for three heartbeats, I saw something in them that made my blood freeze.
Not surprise. Not panic.
Calculation.
Like he was deciding whether to kill me or kiss me.
Then he collapsed.
One second he was upright, powerful, dangerous. The next he crumpled into the wheelchair like his legs had given out. His breathing came hard and fast.
"Vesper—" His voice shook. "I was just— the pain medication makes me hallucinate sometimes that I can stand. I forget I can't actually—"
"Stop." The word came out flat. Dead. "Just stop."
"I know it looked—"
"I saw you." My hands were trembling. Everything was trembling. "I saw you standing. Walking. You weren't hallucinating. You were fine."
Callahan's face went blank. The mask he wore in public, at galas, at board meetings. The dying billionaire who needed pity.
But I'd just seen behind the mask.
"Vesper, you're upset about tonight. About Morgana. You're not thinking clearly—"
"Don't." I backed toward the door. "Don't treat me like I'm stupid. I know what I saw."
He wheeled toward me. "Then what did you see? Tell me."
"You. Standing. Like you've been lying to me for five years."
The words hung in the air between us. Heavy. Deadly.
Callahan's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes. Something dark and hungry that made my skin burn.
"Why were you coming to my study at 2 AM?" he asked instead.
"I heard voices. I thought—" I stopped. What did I think? That my dying husband needed help?
No. I came because I couldn't sleep. Because Morgana's words kept circling in my head like vultures. Because I was going insane in this prison of a penthouse, this prison of a marriage, this prison of a life I'd sold myself into.
"I'm going to bed," I said.
"Vesper—"
"Goodnight, Callahan."
I walked away. Fast. Before he could say anything else. Before I could demand the truth I wasn't ready to hear.
My bedroom door slammed shut behind me. I locked it. Slid down to the floor with my back against the wood.
He was standing. He was standing.
Which meant everything was a lie. The dying diagnosis. The wheelchair. The contract marriage that promised me millions when he died—except he wasn't dying.
Five years. Five years of sacrificing everything. My MIT scholarship. My career. My dignity. All to play nurse to a man who didn't need a nurse.
Why?
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I grabbed it.
Text from unknown number: You saw something tonight you weren't supposed to see.
My heart stopped.
I typed back with shaking fingers: Who is this?
Someone who's been watching you. Someone who knows your husband isn't what he pretends to be.
What do you want?
To help you. Morgana hired me to investigate Callahan before she died. Yes—BEFORE. She knew something was wrong. She was going to expose him Monday.
Before she died. The text said "before she died" like it was certain. Like Morgana was already dead.
But Morgana wasn't dead. I'd just seen her two hours ago.
I typed: Morgana isn't dead.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Check the news.
My hands shook so hard I almost dropped the phone. I pulled up a news site.
The headline hit me like a fist to the stomach:
HEIRESS MORGANA THRACE FOUND MURDERED IN HER OFFICE. BRUTAL KILLING SHOCKS CITY.
No. No, that was impossible. I'd just seen her. Just heard her laughing. Just watched her destroy me in front of three hundred people.
I clicked the article. The details made me want to vomit.
Discovered at 11:47 PM. Multiple stab wounds. Twenty-seven, to be exact. Police were calling it the work of a serial killer known only as "The Architect."
The timestamp said she'd been dead for an hour.
The same hour Callahan had been in his study. Alone. Making a phone call I'd heard through the door.
My phone buzzed again.
Your husband is The Architect. The ghost killer who's terrorized this city for ten years. And you're sleeping in the same house with him.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
If you don't believe me, check his left wrist. He has a scar. Three inches long. Shaped like a crescent moon. Every one of The Architect's victims is marked with the same symbol before they die. He marks them. Then he kills them.
Check his wrist. Then decide if you want to keep pretending you don't know what he is.
The phone went dead. Not turned off. Completely dead. Like someone had remotely killed it.
I sat there on my bedroom floor, shaking, while Morgana's death played on loop in my head.
Twenty-seven stab wounds.
The Architect.
Callahan standing at the window like he owned the world.
His finger tapping morse code at the gala: D-E-A-D. S-O-O-N.
"She's already gone. She just doesn't know it yet."
Oh God.
Oh God, what had I married?
A sound outside my door made me freeze.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.
Coming closer.
The door handle turned. Locked.
"Vesper." Callahan's voice was soft through the wood. Gentle. "We need to talk."
I pressed myself against the door, heart hammering.
"I know you're scared," he continued. "I know what you saw. What you think. But I need you to open this door and let me explain."
"Stay away from me."
Silence. Then: "I can't do that."
"Callahan—"
"Your phone is dead, isn't it? Someone texted you. Told you about Morgana. Told you about me." His voice was still calm. Too calm. "Did they tell you to check my wrist?"
How did he know that?
"Open the door, Vesper. Let me show you the truth. All of it. No more lies."
"You're a murderer."
"Yes." No hesitation. No denial. "But not of innocent people. Never innocent people."
"Morgana—"
"Was going to destroy you. Monday, she planned to file a lawsuit claiming our marriage was fraud. She had evidence. Fake evidence, but enough to ruin you. To take everything you sacrificed for." His hand pressed against the door. I felt it through the wood. "I couldn't let that happen."
"So you killed her."
"So I protected my wife."
Silence stretched between us. Heavy. Suffocating.
"Open the door," Callahan said again. Softer this time. "Please."
My hand moved to the lock.
Then stopped.
Because on the floor, sliding under the door, was a photograph.
I picked it up with trembling fingers.
It showed Callahan—but not my Callahan. This man stood tall and strong in all black, face half-hidden by shadows. In his hand was a knife.
And on his left wrist, clear as day, was a crescent moon scar.
On the back of the photo, someone had written in red ink:
RUN.