POV: HER
Cemeteries are quieter at night.
No mourners. No performances. Just truth carved into stone and left alone.
I park a block away and walk the rest, coat pulled tight against the cold. The air smells like wet earth and rusted iron familiar, grounding.
This isn't about nostalgia.
It's about control.
I stop in front of a headstone that does not have my brother's name on it.
That's the point.
The name carved there is Daniel Crowe. Dates that don't matter. A lie that cost a man his life and saved another.
I crouch, brushing damp leaves away from the base.
"You'd hate this," I murmur. "Me married. Me rich. Me pretending."
Silence answers.
Good.
Daniel was never good with comfort anyway.
I close my eyes, and the memory comes whether I invite it or not.
The night everything went wrong.
Blue lights. Blood on concrete. A scream that didn't sound like it came from my own throat. Daniel dragging me away before the police arrived, hands shaking, voice too calm.
He wasn't your brother, he'd said.
Not to them. Not tonight.
So we buried a stranger.
And my brother disappeared.
"Are you alive?" I whisper into the dark. "Or did I build all this for a ghost?"
Footsteps crunch behind me.
I don't turn.
I don't need to.
"Stalking your own grave?" Adrian asks coolly.
I straighten slowly, then face him.
"You followed me."
"You lied to me," he replies.
We stand among the dead, moonlight cutting his face into sharp planes. He looks… different out here. Less polished. More real.
"What did you find?" I ask.
"Enough," he says. "Your mother didn't spiral. The clinic survived. And your story doesn't add up."
I laugh softly. "Congratulations. You discovered nuance."
"Who is Daniel Crowe?"
The name hits like a blade between ribs.
I school my face instantly. "A mistake."
"Try again."
I step closer. "You don't get truths just because you married me."
"Actually," he says, eyes dark, "I do."
We stare at each other.
Then I sigh.
"Daniel saved my brother," I say. "And died for it."
Adrian stills.
"My brother ran the night he was stabbed," I continue. "Daniel took the fall. Took the knife. Took the grave."
"Why?"
"Because someone wanted my brother gone," I say quietly. "And they weren't finished."
Adrian's voice drops. "Who?"
I meet his eyes.
"You."
Silence explodes.
"I didn't order a killing," he says sharply.
"No," I agree. "You ordered an eviction. You displaced the wrong people. And someone else cleaned up the mess."
He looks away, jaw tight.
"Why marry me?" he asks again. "Why not come after the real culprit?"
"Because you're the gate," I say. "Every road leads through you."
A long beat.
"You think your brother's alive," he says.
"I know he is."
"How?"
I smile, slow and dangerous.
"Because he's watching you too."
Adrian's phone buzzes.
He looks at the screen and goes still.
"What?" I ask.
His eyes lift to mine.
"Someone just accessed my private offshore accounts," he says.
I tilt my head.
"That's impossible."
"I know," he replies. "I built them."
We stare at each other in the dark.
And for the first time, I realize the truth.
This isn't just my revenge.
It's already bigger than both of us.