Chapter 3
The hospital was busy.
Lisa stayed with me the whole time.
She held my hand while the doctor cleaned and dressed my burns.
She brought me water.
She sat with me in silence while I processed everything.
The burns were first and second degree. Painful, but they would heal. They would probably leave some scars, but nothing too bad.
Nothing compared to the scars Mark had left on my heart.
When we were done, Lisa drove me home.
It was late. The kids were asleep with the babysitter.
I walked into my house.
The house Mark and I had bought together.
The house where we'd raised our children.
The house that was now full of lies and betrayal.
Lisa stood in the doorway, unsure.
"Do you want me to stay?" she asked.
I thought about it.
I didn't want to be alone.
But I also didn't know if I wanted the woman my husband had cheated with in my house.
But then I looked at her.
She looked tired. Sad. Alone.
Just like me.
"Yeah," I said. "Stay. We need to talk. About Mark. About the money. About what we're going to do."
She nodded and came in.
I made us coffee.
We sat at the kitchen table—the same table where Mark and I had eaten breakfast every morning, where we'd had family dinners, where we'd celebrated birthdays and holidays.
It felt strange sitting there with Lisa.
But it also felt right.
"Tell me everything," I said.
Lisa took a deep breath.
"I met Mark a year ago," she said. "At a business conference. He was charming. Funny. He told me he was unhappily married. That his wife—you—was dying of cancer. That he was staying with you until the end because he didn't want to leave you alone in your final months."
She paused, looking down at her hands.
"I felt so bad for him," she said. "He seemed so sad. So trapped. I thought I was helping him. I thought we were building something real, something that would start when you... when you were gone."
She shook her head.
"I'm so stupid. I should have known. I should have checked. But I wanted to believe him. I wanted what we had to be real."
She looked at me, tears in her eyes.
"I'm so sorry. For everything. For sleeping with your husband. For being part of this. I never would have done it if I'd known the truth. Never."
I believed her.
I could see the genuine regret in her eyes. The pain. The humiliation.
She had been played.
Just like me.
"I know," I said. "Mark is... he's very good at lying. Very good at manipulating people. He fooled me for eight years. I don't blame you for falling for it too."
Lisa looked surprised.
"You don't hate me?"
I thought about it.
Hate took energy. Energy I didn't have right now. Energy I needed to save for my children. For the fight ahead.
"No," I said. "I don't hate you. I hate him. He's the one who did this. To both of us."
Lisa nodded, tears streaming down her face.
"Thank you," she whispered.
She pulled out the papers she'd brought to the restaurant.
She spread them across the table.
"Here's everything," she said. "Bank transfers. Credit card statements. Hotel receipts. Text messages where he talks about your 'cancer.' Where he asks me for more money. Where he promises we'll be together soon."
I looked through the papers.
The evidence was overwhelming.
Mark had systematically defrauded this woman out of two hundred thousand dollars.
And there was more.
Credit card statements in Mark's name showing charges for expensive jewelry, trips, gifts—none of which I had ever received.
Hotel receipts for hotels in cities where Mark had supposedly been on "business trips."
Text messages where Mark had told Lisa intimate details about our marriage, about our children, about me—all twisted, all lies.
"This is all evidence," I said. "Not just for the fraud. For the divorce. For custody. For everything."
Lisa nodded.
"I want to help you," she said. "I'll testify. I'll give you everything. I want him to pay. For what he did to me. For what he did to you. For what he did to your children."
I looked at her.
The wife and the mistress.
Allies.
It was strange. Unlikely. Unexpected.
But it was also powerful.
Mark had made a mistake.
He had thought he could play us both.
He had thought we would be too busy fighting each other to fight him.
He was wrong.
May you like
"Okay," I said. "We'll do this together. And we're going to destroy him."
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