“Pretend I’m your husband,” he whispered urgently, pulling me into a situation I didn’t understand. In that moment, everything shifted, and I realized my mother’s d🇪ath hadn’t been an accident at all but something far more deliberate. Purpose.

I blinked at him, my brain scrambling to keep up, and then—because something in his eyes told me this wasn’t a game—I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Just… work.”
Victor pushed his chair back, the legs scraping sharply against the tile floor. His partner, the one in the gray suit who always looked like he smelled something unpleasant, stayed seated but leaned forward slightly, his attention sharpening.

“This doesn’t involve you,” Victor said, his voice tight.

The stranger didn’t even look at him right away. Instead, he brushed his thumb lightly across my knuckles—a small, deliberate gesture that somehow grounded me more than anything else—and then turned, placing himself just enough in front of me that I could feel the shift in the room.

“Funny,” he replied calmly. “Because it seems like it involves my wife.”