The woman Nathan had moved into that dingy old neighborhood to get close to, faking poverty just for the privilege of being her neighbor: Bianca Porter.

It was well past midnight when Nathan came up the stairs with his arm around Bianca.

The hallway was pitch black, the motion-sensor lights flickering on only at the sound of their footsteps.

Nathan looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. He yanked his hand back like he'd been burned.

"Tilda?"

"I—she—I just saw Miss Porter feeling dizzy, so I helped her upstairs..."

I glanced at Bianca, still playing the part of a woman on the verge of fainting. I pretended not to notice the dark look in her eyes.

I turned around and went back inside.

A few minutes later, Nathan walked through the door and set a box of sushi on the table.

"Tilda, you haven't eaten dinner yet, right? Have some of this first. I remember you love sushi."

I looked at the box.

Anyone with functioning eyesight could tell it was leftovers.

Nathan hadn't gone bankrupt at all, and he couldn't even be bothered to buy a fresh box to fool me.

"I'm not hungry. Give it to Bianca."

Something flickered across Nathan's face.

He reached for my hand. I pulled away.

"What are you talking about? You're my wife. Of course I save the good stuff for you. Why would I give it to some neighbor?"

A fist clenched around my heart, then released all at once.

It hurt.

I met his eyes. I wanted to cry, but I smiled instead.

"Then why is your grandmother's pearl necklace around Bianca's neck?"

Nathan stiffened.

"Pearl necklaces all look the same. How would I know where hers came from?"

"Besides, didn't you lose the one my grandmother gave you before she passed? Tilda, just because you don't like Bianca doesn't mean you get to throw around accusations!"

I was Tilda.

She was Bianca.

How laughable.

The baby shifted inside me, and it felt like it drained every last drop of my strength.

I smiled politely.

"Then I apologize. My mistake."

Nathan's neck flushed red. After a long silence, the fight drained out of him.

"I'm sorry. I've been under a lot of pressure lately, trying to make money..."

"Tilda, if you're tired, get some sleep. You have your prenatal checkup tomorrow, don't you?"

I went to the bedroom and lay down, but sleep was the furthest thing from my mind.

When Nathan finally came to bed, I asked him quietly.

"Nathan, did you really go bankrupt?"

His voice didn't miss a beat.

"Yeah. Cash flow dried up, so..."

I didn't bother listening to the rest of his lies.

I rolled over, pulled out my phone, and sent a message.

"Don't transfer that hundred million to Nathan. He doesn't need it."

"Also, look into someone for me."

After sending the message, I logged into the hospital's app, canceled my prenatal appointment, and booked an abortion instead.

When I walked out of the operating room, the file on Bianca Porter was waiting in my inbox.

From her college days onward, Bianca had carefully crafted an image: the scrappy, fiercely independent girl who refused handouts. She wouldn't accept a single cent of financial aid, yet every part-time job she picked happened to be at the most exclusive clubs and lounges in the city, the kind crawling with wealthy men.

Tucked into the file was a photo of the first time Bianca and Nathan met.

It was a painfully cliché damsel-in-distress routine. Nathan, the man who'd never tolerate losing face at a business dinner, had half a glass of red wine splashed across his shirt and didn't so much as flinch.

The way he looked at Bianca, his eyes were practically sparkling.

No wonder he never wore that shirt again.

He'd told me it was because I'd given it to him, so it was too precious to wear.

Bianca refused Nathan's money. She turned down the executive assistant position he tried to hand her on a silver platter.

She insisted on earning her own way.

The more she refused, the more obsessed he became.

When Bianca wouldn't accept designer bags, he'd leave them on her route home for her to "find."

No money changed hands. Instead, he used a temp agency to set her up with a job handing out flyers that paid ten thousand dollars a day.

I studied the timeline carefully.

During that same period, Nathan had been "working overtime" constantly, ignoring my messages. The auspicious date I'd had a fortune teller pick for our marriage registration kept getting pushed back, again and again.

The moment I so much as mentioned getting married, Nathan would snap.

"Are you that desperate to tie the knot? You waited seven years. You can't wait five more months?"

So I swallowed my tears and had the designer alter my wedding dress measurements over and over.

By the time we finally registered our marriage, I never got to wear that dress. Because Nathan told me he'd gone bankrupt and couldn't afford a wedding.

Then the private investigator sent me a recording.

"To marry Bianca, I've got no choice but to get the marriage certificate with Tilda first."

"There's no other way. A woman like Tilda, if I don't keep her pacified, she'll use the pregnancy to force my hand. And Bianca has too strong a sense of justice. She'd cut me off completely."

"Get the certificate first. Forget about a wedding. When the time comes, I'll just tell Tilda I went bankrupt. That way I can move in next door to Bianca and take care of her."

"As for the kid in her belly, we'll deal with that later. If Bianca doesn't want it around, I'll just hire a few people to... If Tilda finds out, she finds out. Honestly, I'd love it if she filed for divorce herself."

By the time the recording ended, I was already standing outside Bianca's door.

Two voices laughed and flirted inside.

Ten minutes ago, Nathan had told me he'd picked up several designated-driver gigs and wouldn't be coming home tonight.

Lies like that rolled off his tongue without effort now.

I'd almost forgotten there was a time when he used to blush just asking, "Want to grab dinner together tonight?"

The sounds from the room grew louder.

I opened the camera on my phone, raised it, and pounded on the door.

The noise inside died instantly.

"Who is it?" Bianca called out.

I said nothing. I held the phone up with one hand and hammered on the door with the other.

The door swung open, revealing Bianca in a skimpy negligee from the waist up. Red marks trailed down her neck. One glance past her shoulder was all it took to spot the used condom wrappers scattered across the floor.

The second she saw the phone in my hand, her expression shifted.

"Tilda, what are you doing?"

I pushed my way in.

"I heard my husband's voice, so I came to check."

Bianca tried to shove me back. The persona she wore in public was always the same: blunt, outspoken, the kind of girl who'd rather break than bend.

"Your husband isn't here! Just because you're pregnant doesn't mean the whole world has to tiptoe around you!"

My loud knocking had already drawn a few neighbors to their doorways. The moment they heard that, their eyes lit up.

I looked at Bianca and pointed at the used condoms on the floor.

"Whether my husband's here or not, I'll know once I step inside. What's the matter? Were you blowing those up like balloons by yourself?"

Bianca's face turned crimson. Several neighbors covered their mouths, stifling laughter.

"Come on, just let her look," they chimed in. "She's pregnant. Don't pick a fight with a pregnant woman."

"If you ask me, you brought this on yourself. Always hanging around someone else's husband. We neighbors have seen it more than a few times."

"Stop making things up!" Bianca bit her lip, eyes glistening with tears on cue.

I shoved her aside.

"Move!"

Caught off guard, Bianca stumbled backward and fell right into Nathan's arms.

He was already dressed, though his collar was a disheveled mess and his face was dark as thunder.

"Bianca's pipes burst. I was just helping her fix them. What the hell is wrong with you?"

A knot of fury lodged in my chest.

"Fixing her pipes with a condom? Nathan, do you think I'm stupid?"

"You—!"

Nathan raised his hand at me. It froze in midair.

He dragged me into the bathroom.

Sure enough, a pipe had burst, and water covered the floor. A few neighbors who'd followed us in took one look and started murmuring.

"So he really was fixing a pipe. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding?"

"Of course it was a misunderstanding!" Bianca rushed over, eyes rimmed red. "Tilda, I know you trapped Nathan into marrying you by using your pregnancy as leverage, but not every woman is like you!"

"I'm independent. I don't need a man to survive. I'm nothing like you. I didn't spread my legs for some guy before I even had a marriage certificate!"

The crowd erupted.

Every pair of eyes turned toward me, glinting with mockery and amusement.

"No wonder she's so paranoid about other women. Look at what she did herself."

"I knew it. The day she moved in, I could smell that kind of woman a mile away."

Bianca saw that everyone had taken her side. Triumph flickered across her face.

"I already called the police. Breaking into someone's home is a crime!"

I stared at that face of hers, and a surge of fury roared through me. Before I could think, my hand shot out and cracked across her cheek.

The sharp sound hung in the air. Then I saw Nathan's expression. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles twitched.

He shoved me hard, and his palm came down across my face with full force.

Right then, several officers in uniform arrived at the door.

I fell back onto the bathroom tiles, the lower half of my body soaked through with cold water. I was shaking uncontrollably.

"Nathan Ellison, you hit me?"

Nathan seemed dazed for a moment after the slap. But Bianca leaned into his arms, and just like that, the clarity returned to his eyes.

"You were being completely unreasonable. Why wouldn't I hit you?"

"Officers, take my wife away. I think she could use some time reflecting on her behavior."

Then he actually asked them to put me in handcuffs.

My cheek burned with searing pain. My body, still weak from the procedure, could barely hold itself upright. The agony swallowed every word I tried to say. I was led to the car in silence.

Because I was soaked from head to toe, a female officer handed me a towel to wrap around myself. But I couldn't stop trembling.

Bianca called the station directly.

"I'm not going to forgive her. Let her sit in there for a full day!"

Nathan said he'd go along with whatever Bianca wanted.

My clothes slowly dried against my skin from body heat alone. I really was held at the station the entire night.

Nathan didn't come to see me. Not once.

I just sat there, staring blankly out the window at the fireworks blooming across the sky. The officers on the night shift were chatting among themselves.

"The Ellison family has that kind of money? Those fireworks have been going for three hours straight and they're still not done?"

"You haven't checked social media? His little girlfriend got upset, so he's setting off fireworks to cheer her up. He's even making up some excuse that someone else is behind it."

"Didn't people say a while back that Ellison Group had some kind of financial trouble?"

"Come on, you actually believed that? That was just a stunt."

I curled up in a corner all night. The next morning, I walked out of the station in a daze.

I barely made it around the corner before a burlap sack was yanked over my head and I was dragged into an alley.

The sack was ripped away. Several pairs of hands slapped me across the face, hard and fast. Two, three strikes, and both cheeks had already swollen grotesquely.

I spat out a mouthful of blood and tried to make out the faces in front of me.

Another slap answered that effort.

"Don't even look at us. You messed with the wrong person, and this is what you get!"

"That man belongs to the boss lady. Who do you think you are, trying to take a bite?"

They kicked me a few more times. When I was curled up in a puddle on the ground, they finally sneered and walked away.

The buzzing of my phone dragged me back to consciousness.

I answered it on instinct.

Nathan's voice was light, breezy, as if nothing unpleasant had happened at all.

"Tilda, I'm really swamped today. No time to come pick you up, so just walk home on your own. It's only about ten miles anyway."

"And don't go misunderstanding my Bianca again. She's got a proud streak. She blows up when people accuse her of things she didn't do."