Too Late, Mr. Don: Your Wife Erased You

I sat on the floor of my walk-in closet, hemmed in by fifty thousand dollars worth of designer clothes that felt less like a wardrobe and more like a prison uniform.

Chanel. Gucci. Prada. All gifts from Brendan. All selected to drape his property in the finest fabrics. God, how I hated them.

I pulled a hollowed-out copy of The Great Gatsby from the bottom shelf and retrieved the encrypted satellite phone hidden inside. My hands were steady now. The rage had calcified into cold purpose.

I dialed a number that didn't exist in any phone book.

"Speak," a voice answered. Distorted. Metallic.

"It's the Architect," I said.

A pause. "I told you never to call unless you were ready to pay the price."

"I'm ready, Evans."

Evans Calderon. The Ghost Maker. He was a disgraced neuroscientist who operated in the shadows, offering a service so illegal and dangerous that even the cartel bosses whispered about it with fear.

The Tabula Rasa. The Blank Slate.

"You understand the procedure?" Evans asked, his voice devoid of empathy. "This isn't selective amnesia. I don't just take the bad days. I take everything. Episodic memory. Your name. Your history. The face of the man you sleep next to. You will be an infant in a woman's body until your semantic memory reboots."

"That woman is already dead," I said, picking at a loose thread on the carpet. "I just need you to bury her."

"And the payment?"

"The encryption keys to the Cayman Island accounts. The Alpha Node. You'll have access to fifty million in untraceable bonds."

I heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end. I was handing him the keys to the kingdom. I was gutting the Wiggins Syndicate to buy my freedom.

"Thursday," Evans said. "Midnight. Meatpacking District. Come alone. Bring nothing. If you bring a tracker, I kill you."

"I know the rules."

"One more thing," Evans added. "Once the needle goes in, there is no antidote. You can't remember him, even if you want to."

"That's the point," I whispered.

I hung up and shoved the phone back into the book.

The bedroom door opened.

I froze. I stood up quickly, grabbing a silk scarf to mask my movements.

Brendan stood in the doorway, loosening his tie. He looked tired. The weight of the crown was heavy tonight. He walked over to me, his presence filling the small space, sucking the air out of the room.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked.

"Just organizing," I said.

He reached out and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me flush against him. I smelled expensive scotch and the faint, cloying scent of vanilla perfume.

Kiya's perfume.

My stomach churned, but I forced my body to yield. I had practiced this submission for a decade.

"You're tense," he murmured into my hair. "Come to bed."

"I'll be there in a minute."

He tightened his grip. "You belong to me, Ellery. You know that, right? No matter what happens out there."

"I know," I said.

He kissed my neck—a wet, claiming mark. "Mine."

He released me and walked into the bedroom. I watched his back. He didn't love me. He loved owning me. He loved that I was the brilliant, broken doll he had put back together.

I touched the spot on my neck where his lips had been. It felt like a brand.

I tried to summon a memory of when I loved him. I tried to remember the way he held my hand in the hospital, the way he taught me to code, the way he promised I was safe.

But all I could see was the video. She's functional.

I closed my eyes and built a brick wall in my mind. I placed every memory of Brendan Wiggins behind it. The laughter, the sex, the fear, the comfort. I sealed it with mortar made of ash.

I had three days to play the perfect wife. Three days to say goodbye to a life that was never really mine.