wife on the floor.”

Celeste swallowed.

“I thought she was being dramatic.”

“She was begging for help.”

“She is always begging for something.”

The words came out before she could dress them.

Adrian flinched as if she had struck him.

Kiara looked at the floor.

For the first time all evening, she seemed ashamed.

Not enough, maybe, but enough to understand the room had turned.

Adrian stepped between me and his mother.

“Go upstairs, Elise,” he said quietly.

My stomach dropped.

Celeste’s eyes flashed with triumph.

Then he turned toward me fully.

“Pack only what you need for tonight.

I’m coming with you.”

Celeste’s triumph died.

“What?”

Adrian did not look away from me.

“We’re leaving this house tonight.

The doctor said you should be resting.

I booked a suite near the hospital.”

I stared at him.

A suite.

Near the hospital.

Not a grand gesture.

Not a speech.

A practical act of care.

That was what finally broke me.

My eyes burned, but I refused to cry in front of Celeste.

I nodded and started up the stairs.

Adrian reached out as if to help, then stopped.

“May I?” he asked.

The question was so gentle that it undid years of bracing.

I nodded again.

He came beside me and offered his arm.

I leaned on it carefully, feeling how rigid he was with contained rage.

At the landing, I glanced back.

Celeste stood in the foyer below, her pearls gleaming, one hand gripping the banister.

“You are making a mistake,” she said.

Adrian looked down at her.

“No.

I made it every time I left Elise here and called it trust.”

In our bedroom, the air smelled faintly of cedar and the lavender sachets Celeste insisted were classier than candles.

My suitcase was in the closet behind Adrian’s winter coats.

I pulled it out with one hand, but he gently took it from me and set it on the bed.

“Tell me what to pack.”

There are apologies that ask you to comfort the person who hurt you.

Adrian’s was not one of them.

He did not demand forgiveness.

He did not explain how busy he had been.

He did not say his mother meant well.

He opened drawers and waited.

“Gray sweater,” I said.

“Black jeans.

The blue dress from the back.”

He packed each item carefully.

When he reached the drawer where I kept my documents, he paused.

“Elise.”

I followed his gaze.

My passport was gone.

So were my birth certificate, my mother’s locket, and the small envelope of cash I had hidden beneath my old sketchbook.

A chill passed through me.

“I put them there last week,” I whispered.

Adrian’s face hardened.

He walked to the doorway and called down, “Mother.”

No answer.

We moved faster then.

He packed my medication, the discharge papers, clothes, phone charger, and the framed photograph of my parents that Celeste had once called depressing.

By the time we came downstairs, Celeste and Kiara were waiting in the living room.

Celeste sat upright on the sofa like a queen receiving traitors.

On the coffee table sat a cream envelope.

My maiden name was written across it in Celeste’s looping hand.

My heartbeat stumbled.

“Looking for these?” she asked.

Adrian’s voice was deadly quiet.

“You went through her documents.”

“I