Page 54 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

I’m lying, because you don’t erase someone you still love.

You just try to survive what they did to you.

15. Betrayal

Dante

Valeria is still on the floor when security arrives. I open the door and let them in.

“Get her out of my sight.”

The two men haul her to her feet and drag her away without ceremony. She doesn’t resist.

That detail hits me harder than I expect.

She could’ve fought back. Protested. Begged.

She does nothing.

Like someone who’s already lost everything.

I shove the thought away.

The second I’m alone again, I dial Andrea’s number while watching the progress bar on the screen.

37%.

“Come,” I say. “I need to know what she tried to steal.”

“Already?” he asks, stunned. “Seriously. I never would’ve believed she could do something like this. What the hell was she thinking?”

His confusion mirrors mine. To him, she’s like a sister.

She betrayed all of us.

After a brief pause, he adds:

“How are you holding up?”

I don’t bother hiding it.

“I’ll survive.”

“Don’t do anything irreversible. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Is he talking about the data?

Or my relationship with my ex-wife?

*

By the time he arrives, the progress bar has reached 83%.

Yasin comes with him — a white-hat hacker in his thirties, the same man who installed Valeria’s workstation the day before.

He sits down at the computer, types for a moment, then finally looks up.

“Nothing was stolen.”