Chapter 43: The Slip

I didn't blink. I couldn't. I stared at the blue folder in Mark’s hand, the paper equivalent of a burial shroud. "Incompetent," I whispered, the word tasting like copper and bile. "That’s what you told the lawyer. That’s what you told the state."

Mark stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. He didn't lock it this time. He didn't have to. The house was a fortress, the windows were coffins, and the law was now his weapon. "It’s for your own good, Elara. You’re not well. You saw what happened with Mrs. Gable. Your delusions are dangerous."

"My delusions?" I stood my ground, my fingers surreptitiously reaching for the baby monitor receiver I’d tucked into my waistband. "You pushed her, Mark. I know you did. Just like you pushed Sarah."

He flinched, a flicker of the old Mark—the one who couldn't stand the sight of blood—passing over his features before the mask hardened again. "Sarah was an accident. And Mrs. Gable... she’s an old woman who didn't know when to mind her own business."

"And Elena?" I pressed, my voice low and lethal. "Is she an accident too? Or is she the one holding the leash?"

Mark didn't answer. He walked to the smart hub and tapped the screen, his fingers swift and clinical. He wasn't just clearing the visitor log; he was rewriting the digital history of the last forty-eight hours. "Chloe is my sister. You need to stop saying that name."

"I heard you, Mark. In the basement. I saw the video. I know she’s Elena Rostova. I know she was driving the car that killed your sister."

He spun around, the blue folder crinkling in his white-knuckled grip. "You don't know anything! You’re a sick woman who can't even produce enough milk for her own child! You’re lucky we’re even keeping you around!"

The cruelty was a splash of ice water. It cleared the last of the chemical fog from my mind. He wasn't just a husband who had made a mistake. He was a predator who had found his prey.

"Is that why you’re doing it?" I asked. "For the money? Sarah’s inheritance?"

"It’s our inheritance," he spat. "Sarah was going to waste it. Elena... Elena knows how to use it. She knows how to build a life."

"By stealing mine."

He laughed, a sharp, jagged sound. "You were just the incubator, Elara. A blank slate. No family, no ties, just a perfect biological match for the life Elena was supposed to have."

He turned back to the hub, his shoulders relaxing as he finished the wipe. He didn't realize the baby monitor in my hand was still active. He didn't realize the base unit was still plugged in downstairs in the kitchen, right next to the charging station where Chloe was currently arguing with Nadia.

I held the receiver to my ear, straining to hear through the static of his arrogance.

"—not enough, Elena," Nadia’s voice drifted through, sharp as a razor. "I risked my parole for this. I want the full amount. Tonight."

"The offshore accounts are frozen until the conservatorship is finalized," Chloe hissed. "Mark is upstairs dealing with her now. Once he signs the papers, you’ll get your cut."

"I don't care about your legal games," Nadia snarled. "I want the money now, or I take the kid and I disappear. You think the cops are looking for you? Wait until I tell them where you buried the real Sarah Vance."

I felt the air leave my lungs. Mark froze at the hub, his head tilting toward the door. He had heard it too. The silence that followed was more deafening than the argument.

Chloe’s voice came back, low and vibrating with a desperation that chilled me to the bone. "I did my time for you, Mark. I took the fall for the crash. I lived in the shadows for a decade while you played the grieving brother. You owe me this life."

She wasn't talking to Nadia anymore. She was talking to the monitor. She was talking to the husband she had bought with a death.

"You owe me," she repeated, her voice rising to a shriek. "Or I tell them what really happened to Sarah."