Chapter 4: What Madison Knew
I didn't watch Nathan answer the call.
I walked to the downstairs bathroom, closed the door, and sat on the edge of the cold tub.
My hands were shaking.
Not from fear.
From the effort of holding myself together for that long in front of him.
I peeled the torn fabric away from my back carefully.
The marks were deep.
Parallel lines, some still seeping.
I pressed a folded towel against them and breathed through my nose until the shaking stopped.
My phone buzzed.
A message from my father's assistant: *Medical team is outside.
Say the word.*
I typed back: *Five minutes.*
I looked at my reflection in the mirror above the sink.
Split lip.
A bruise forming along my left cheekbone.
My hair had come loose on one side.
I had walked into this house three years ago believing that love was enough to make a man worth loving.
I tucked my hair back.
Stood up straight.
Then I walked back out.
Nathan was on the phone in the corner, speaking in a low, rapid voice.
His posture had changed.
The shoulders that had always carried such deliberate authority were pulled inward, like a man trying to make himself smaller.
Madison was back inside.
No one had invited her.
She was standing near the fireplace, her phone in both hands, scrolling fast.
She looked up when I entered.
"I want you to know," she said, "that I had nothing to do with the financial side of any of this."
"I know exactly what you had to do with," I said.
"I'm serious, Sophia.
Whatever Nathan did with the accounts, with the offshore money — that was him.
I was never involved in the business."
"You were involved in everything else."
She set her phone down on the mantle.
"I know you're angry—"
"I'm not angry at you, Madison." I said it simply, because it was true.
"You are exactly what you always presented yourself to be.
Nathan knew that and chose you anyway.
That's not your crime.
That's his."
She blinked.
She had prepared for a fight.
My calm unsettled her more than rage would have.
"Then what happens to me?" she asked.
"That depends on what you know and what you're willing to say."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"What do you mean?"
"The pregnancy," I said.
"Is it real?"
A long pause.
"Yes," she said.
"Is it Nathan's?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"Madison."
"I don't know," she said quietly.
"It might not be."
Nathan had ended his call.
He was standing very still across the room, listening.
"Nathan," I said, without turning to look at him, "did you know that?"
Silence.
"Did you know there was a question about the pregnancy when you threw that folder at me?"
"Sophia—"
"Answer the question."
"I knew there was…
a possibility it wasn't mine," he said.
His voice had gone flat.
"But it didn't matter.
I needed a reason."
"A reason," I repeated.
"A reason to end the marriage cleanly.
Madison being pregnant gave me leverage.
It gave me a story." He paused.
"I'm sorry."
The apology landed like a stone dropped into still water.
Small.
Too late.
Already sinking.
Madison turned to look at Nathan with an expression I recognized.
It was the same expression I had worn for fourteen months before I finally stopped wearing it.
The expression of a woman realizing she was also a tool.
"You used me," she said.
"Madison—"
"You told me you loved me.
You told me this was real." Her voice was rising.
"You said the pregnancy was the best thing that could have happened.
You said we were going to build something together."
"We were.
I just needed—"
"You needed a weapon." She picked her phone back up from the mantle.
Her hands were shaking now too.
"You needed something to hjt her with and I was convenient."
Nathan took a step toward her.
"That's not—"
"Don't." She held up one hand.
The same word I had used.
The same flat, final tone.
"Don't come near me."
She looked at me.
"What do you need me to say?" she asked.
"To whoever is asking.
What do you need me to say and where do I say it?"
I studied her for a moment.
"My father's legal team will contact you tomorrow," I said.
"Tell them everything.
The timeline.
The conversations.
What Nathan told you about the accounts.
What he told you about me." I paused.
"Tell them the truth about the pregnancy."
She nodded once.
Quickly.
Like a woman who had just found a door and intended to walk through it before it closed.
She picked up her coat from the chair where she had left it.
She didn't look at Nathan again.
At the door, she stopped.
"For what it's worth," she said, still facing away from both of us, "I did think you were too good for him.
From the first time I saw you together." She opened the door.
"I just didn't say so."
She left.
Nathan and I were alone for the first time.
He looked older than he had an hour ago.
The contempt was gone.
What was left underneath it was smaller and sadder than I had expected.
"She'll give them everything," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"Then it's finished."
"Not yet," I said.
"There's still the matter of what you did tonight.
Not the accounts.
Not the business." I looked at him directly.
"What you did to me.
In this room.
In front of a witness."
Nathan's jaw tightened.
"Madison won't testify to that."
"She won't need to," I said.
I reached into my pocket and placed my phone on the table between us.
The screen showed a recording application.
The timer read one hour, fourteen minutes, and thirty-two seconds.
May you like
Nathan stared at it.
"The moment you picked up the crop," I said, "I hit record."
