Chapter One
The Night Everything Fell Apart.
The house was too quiet.
That was the first thing I noticed when I walked in that evening,the kind of silence that pressed against your ears, heavy and suffocating. Usually, there was music playing softly in the background or the faint sound of Tiffany humming from the kitchen as she made dinner. But that night… nothing. Just the echo of my footsteps across marble floors.
I remember setting my briefcase down, calling out without thinking, "Tiff?"
No answer.
I frowned. She always answered, even if it was just a distracted "In here, babe." I checked the kitchen,spotless, empty. The air still smelled faintly of her perfume, that vanilla scent she loved so much. My throat tightened. I moved through the living room, my heart starting to thud harder with each step.
"Tiff?" I called again, louder this time.
Silence.
Something felt wrong.
I went upstairs, two steps at a time. The door to our bedroom was ajar. My pulse spiked as I pushed it open. The room looked untouched ,the bed neatly made, the curtains drawn open to let in the fading evening light. But then my eyes drifted to her side of the room.
The closet doors were wide open.
Her clothes were gone.
Every shelf that once held her dresses, her scarves, her favourite heels, empty. Only hangers swinging lightly as if she had just finished packing moments ago. I froze in the doorway, disbelief washing over me in cold waves.
"Tiffany…" I whispered, as if saying her name would somehow bring her back.
I checked the bathroom. Her toothbrush wasn't there. Her makeup, gone. The counter was bare , except for a small folded piece of paper sitting neatly on the dresser beside the mirror.
A white envelope. My name scrawled in her handwriting.
My hands trembled as I reached for it.
I unfolded the paper slowly, and my world collapsed.
Divorce papers.
Her signature sat there, clean and final, beside the line marked Wife.
I stared at it for a long time, my eyes refusing to believe what they were seeing. My throat burned. My chest tightened until I couldn't breathe.
This had to be a mistake.
It had to be.
Tiffany wouldn't do this. Not her. Not the woman who laughed with me in this very room, who told me she loved me every night before we slept, who cried in my arms when her father was sick.
But she had.
And she'd done it without a word.
I dropped onto the edge of the bed, the paper shaking in my hands. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. Every memory of her flashed in my head ,her smile, her scent, her laughter. The way she used to reach across the table to fix my tie before I left for work.
Why?
I grabbed my phone and dialled her number. It rang once, then stopped. I called again.
Disconnected.
A cold, unfamiliar panic clawed up my chest. I tried again,voicemail. Then again, and again.
"Tiff, please," I muttered under my breath, dialling until my vision blurred with tears. "Pick up the damn phone. Tell me this is some kind of joke."
But every call went straight to the same hollow silence.
Then it hit me.
She'd blocked my number.
That realization shattered something inside me. My breath caught, my jaw locked, and a strange, animal-like sound escaped my throat , half anger, half pain. I hurled the phone across the room, watching it crash against the wall and fall to the floor in pieces.
I pressed my palms to my face, trying to breathe through the rage and disbelief. My mind refused to stop spinning.
Why would she do this?
The Tiffany I knew wasn't cruel. She was warm, patient, and kind, the girl who believed in me, the one who said she didn't care about my money, just me.
And yet here I was, staring at proof that maybe everything had been a lie.
My chest felt like it was caving in. I grabbed my phone again, the cracked screen flickering faintly, and called the only person who might know something.
My mother.
She picked up on the second ring. "David?"
"Mom," I said, my voice rough. "Did you talk to Tiffany today? She's gone."
There was a brief pause, too brief. "Gone?" she repeated softly.
"Her things are gone. The closet's empty. She left divorce papers, already signed." I swallowed hard. "Do you know anything about this?"
Another pause. Then a sigh. "Sweetheart… maybe it's for the best."
That made my blood run cold. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
My mother hesitated again. "She came to me, David. A few days ago. She said she wanted out. That she wasn't happy. She… she requested some money to make things easier."
I froze. "Money?"
"Yes," my mother continued, voice cautious. "She said she needed it to start over. I wrote her a check. I thought you knew."
A bitter laugh escaped my throat — harsh, hollow, ugly. "So she took the money and left?"
"Honey"
"She took the damn money and left?" I shouted, cutting her off.
My mother went quiet. "She wasn't right for you, David. She never was. I told you that from the beginning,a woman like that, from that kind of background, she"
"Stop." My voice cracked, low and dangerous. "Don't you dare talk about her like that."
"Then what do you want me to say? That she fooled you? Because she did. She played her role perfectly until she got what she wanted?"
"Enough!" I yelled. "You don't know her."
"Clearly neither did you," she snapped back.
I hung up before I said something I couldn't take back.
I stood there, staring at the wall, my fists clenched so hard my nails dug into my palms. My chest felt like fire and ice all at once. My mother's words echoed in my head, she requested money.
No. Tiffany would never
Would she?
The doubt crept in slowly, poison seeping through my veins.
Had she really married me for my money?
Had all those late-night promises, all those whispered "I love yous," been lies?
I thought of the nights we stayed up talking about our future, the way she'd smiled when we bought this house, the tears in her eyes when I told her she made me believe in love again.
Could all of that have been fake?
I walked back into the closet, staring at the empty space where her things used to be. The faint scent of her perfume still lingered in the air,soft and sweet, like a ghost refusing to leave.
Something inside me broke then.
Completely.
I fell to my knees, clutching the divorce papers to my chest, and let out a sound I didn't know I was capable of. A sound of a man whose heart had been ripped out of his chest.
That night, I didn't sleep. I just sat on the floor of our bedroom, surrounded by memories and silence, waiting for a message, a call, a sign that this wasn't real.
But morning came. And she was still gone.
That was the night David Carter died, the man who loved the man who believed.
The man who thought forever meant forever.
In his place, another man was born, colder, sharper, and untouchable.
Love had been my biggest mistake.
And I swore I'd never make it again.