Chapter 3 - The Wife Who Disappeared
Ethan pointed toward Lena.
“She is lying.”
Detective Warren looked at the belt on the floor, then at the glowing phone.
“No one has asked her a question yet.”
Lena did not move closer.
She stayed near the doorway where security cameras could see her.
Ava noticed the scar along Lena’s left wrist.
It was faded but deep.
Ethan followed Ava’s gaze.
“That had nothing to do with me.”
Lena’s mouth tightened.
“You told the hospital I fell through a glass door.”
“You did.”
“You pushed me.”
Detective Warren raised a hand.
“We will take statements separately.”
Ethan turned toward Ava.
“She has been stalking me for years.”
Lena opened her legal case and removed a certified marriage record.
Ava read the dates.
Ethan and Lena had married six years earlier.
Their divorce had been finalized only eleven months before Ethan proposed to Ava.
Ethan had told Ava he had never been married.
He claimed he had avoided serious relationships because his parents’ divorce made him afraid of commitment.
Every vulnerable confession had been rehearsed.
Every story had been selected to make Ava trust him.
Lena placed a second document on the table.
A restraining order.
It had expired two years earlier.
“He violated it three times,” Lena said. “But each time, his family’s attorney convinced the prosecutor I was unstable.”
Ethan scoffed.
“Because you were.”
Ava looked at him.
The man standing before her no longer resembled the charming architect who brought coffee to her office every morning.
His expression had changed during the honeymoon.
It began with small corrections.
Do not wear that dress.
Do not speak to the waiter like that.
Do not answer your mother before answering me.
By the sixth night, he had created written rules.
Rule One: A wife never contradicts her husband in public.
Rule Two: All passwords belong to both spouses.
Rule Three: Her income entered a joint account he controlled.
Ava had laughed nervously.
Ethan had not.
He told her marriage required structure.
When she refused to give him her banking password, he placed his belt across the hotel bed and said:
“Disobedience becomes a habit unless it is corrected early.”
That was when Ava believed Lena’s message.
Detective Warren picked up the belt with a gloved hand.
Ethan turned toward Ava.
“You knew she was coming.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since Greece.”
His jaw clenched.
“You slept beside me while planning this?”
Ava met his stare.
“You slept beside me while planning to hurt me.”
Lena looked at the honeymoon luggage.
“There is something in his black suitcase you need to see.”
May you like
Ethan lunged toward it.
👉 Whatever Ethan had carried home from the honeymoon frightened him more than the police standing inside his apartment.
