My husband, Quentin Croft, and I had one job: get the backup key for the "Hydra Protocol" back to Washington.

Before boarding, however, he claimed he'd left an encrypted hard drive at the hotel and told me to board without him.

I smiled as I watched him get into the car, then pulled up the synced location tracker on my phone.

His route deviated from the hotel, heading straight for a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva.

I followed in my own car. A warm light spilled from the villa's window, where a woman holding a child stood in the doorway, waiting.

"Quentin, you're finally home. Sofia and I have missed you so much."

He took the child and planted a deep, possessive kiss on the woman's lips.

"Baby, I missed you two like crazy. Wherever you are, that's home."

Just then, my phone buzzed with a call from the FBI, demanding to know why I’d missed the secure flight.

I stared at the scene inside the window, at the family silhouetted against the light, and my voice was glacial.

"Because Quentin Croft, a senior director at the Federal Strategy and Technology Institute (FSTI), is selling state secrets to a foreign agent."

"I'm requesting immediate backup to arrest him."

————————

1

Not long after I hung up, Quentin's phone rang.

I don't know what was said, but the smile vanished from his face, replaced by a flash of panic.

He hastily pushed the child back into Katia's arms, grabbed his coat, and rushed for the door.

Confused, Katia grabbed his hand, her eyes pleading.

"Quentin, where are you going? Didn't you promise to spend the night with Sofia and me?"

Quentin was in no mood to explain. He shook her off and jumped into his car.

He sped back toward the airport.

After learning that I hadn't boarded the plane either, he began calling me frantically.

I ignored his desperate calls and calmly faced the two FBI agents in front of me.

The lead agent, Mark Dawson, regarded me with a grave expression.

"Ms. Sinclair, this is an extremely serious accusation. If it's found to be false, you will face severe legal consequences."

I gave a solemn nod, my words deliberate.

"Agent Dawson, I stand by every word."

"Our only objective on this mission was to escort that key back to Washington."

"A few days ago, I noticed some anomalies in our shared cloud account, so I mirrored the data. That's when I discovered he was sneaking out of the hotel every night, not returning until just before dawn."

"He was drugging my water, making sure I slept so soundly he could slip away."

"This burner phone contains his location history for every night, as well as a complete mirror of his laptop."

I pushed a phone across the table.

Dawson exchanged a look with the other agent and immediately pressed on.

"Is the key to the 'Hydra Protocol' in his possession right now?"

I nodded, then shook my head.

"For security, Quentin and I each hold half of the key."

"I can guarantee my half is secure. I can't say the same for Quentin's."

Dawson's breath hitched. He picked up the phone and stood.

"Ms. Sinclair, we need to verify this information immediately. Until we do, you'll have to remain in this conference room. I'm sure you understand."

I nodded calmly.

Quentin, still at the airport and unable to reach me, was spiraling into a full-blown panic.

He was about to head back to the hotel to find me.

Just as he stepped out of the terminal, he was surrounded by a dozen security officers from the consulate.

A dozen black barrels were aimed squarely at his head.

The color drained from his face, and his knees buckled, nearly sending him to the ground.

"Quentin Croft, you're coming with us!"

Before he could protest, two officers had his arms twisted behind his back and were shoving him into an armored vehicle.

Quentin was brought back to the consulate.

As I turned my head, our eyes met across the room.

His pupils constricted violently. Then he lost all control, roaring at me.

"Ava! Are you out of your fucking mind?!"

"I'm your husband! How could you do this to me? Are you setting me up?!"

I said nothing, merely staring at him with cold detachment.

Husband? Really? Just half an hour ago, he was holding another woman, calling her "baby."

If he truly saw me as his wife… how could he fly to Geneva, to his mistress and their illegitimate daughter, on the very night I was in surgery for our miscarriage?

Whether he'd actually betrayed state secrets was irrelevant.

I just knew I had to avenge my child, who never had a chance to open their eyes to this world.

My game had just begun.

In less than half an hour, Dawson had confirmed Katia's identity.

They had even discovered she'd given birth to Quentin's illegitimate daughter.

Dawson, holding a sheaf of printouts, sat down across from me again.

"Ms. Sinclair, how long have you known about your husband's affair? Is this report simply a matter of personal revenge?"

Meeting his sharp gaze, I subconsciously tightened my grip on the water glass in my hand.

But my expression remained composed, my tone perfectly even.

"I discovered his affair while I was pregnant, yes, but I would never jeopardize my career to settle a personal score."

"It was only while investigating his infidelity that I realized something else was wrong."

"What was wrong?"

"His mistress is Eastern European. Her background raised some red flags."

Of course, I hadn't discovered this information myself.

Katia had sent it to me, eager to gloat and provoke.

Her existence had shattered every illusion I ever had about love and marriage.

Dawson's brow furrowed.

"And based on that alone, you concluded he was colluding with a spy and selling state secrets?"

My eyes welled with tears, and my voice trembled with a sorrow I could barely contain.

"Agent Dawson, I never wanted to make these family matters public, but with national security at stake, I couldn't dare hide anything."

"Everyone thinks I miscarried because of an accidental fall. The truth is, I saw a large charge on Quentin's credit card from a luxury baby boutique. The shock was so great it caused me to hemorrhage."

My words were a careful cocktail of truth and lies.

I had seen that credit card transaction.

But I had already miscarried by then.

I was only saying this to draw everyone's attention to the woman behind the purchase.

As expected, Dawson immediately followed up.

"What else passed between him and this woman?"

"Besides some explicit flirting, the thing she asked about most were the specifics of his work."

I paused for a moment before continuing.

"My maternal grandfather was General Sinclair; he once served as the Director of National Intelligence. Growing up in that environment, I developed a sensitivity to certain kinds of information."

Hearing this, Dawson looked at me with renewed surprise.

And this was my trump card.

With General Sinclair's reputation backing me up.

Who would dare question whether I was framing Quentin for selfish reasons?

When Dawson spoke again, his tone was noticeably more respectful.

"Ms. Sinclair, rest assured, we will investigate this thoroughly."

"We will not wrong an innocent man, but we certainly won't let a traitor get away, especially one who endangers national security."

I nodded and offered a subtle reminder.

"The chat logs might have been deleted by Quentin, but he has an encrypted external hard drive that even I don't have access to. You might find what you're looking for there."

Not long after Dawson left, a commotion erupted outside the conference room.

It turned out that Katia had also been "invited" to the consulate.

Her eyes were wide with terror.

When she saw me not far away, she lunged at me like a cornered animal.

After being restrained by security, she shrieked.

"Ava Sinclair, you bitch! What have you done to me and Quentin?"

A smirk touched my lips, my eyes filled with mockery.

"Nothing. I'm just returning the favor for what you both did to me and my child."

"Oh, by the way, didn't Quentin say that wherever you are is home? I'm just helping the two of you be together!"

The color drained from Katia's face.

It took a long moment before she screamed again.

"You vicious bitch!"

"No wonder no one loves you!"

"No wonder Quentin finds it disgusting to even touch you!"

A month ago, her words might have cut me to the bone.

But now, the more vicious her words, the more perverse satisfaction I felt.

They were panicking.

Due to the gravity of the situation, Quentin and I were secretly flown back to Washington on a government plane.

Except his wrists were bound by a pair of shiny steel handcuffs. Mine were not.

After all, I was the "whistleblower," and he was the "suspect."

As for Katia, her foreign national status complicated proceedings, so she had to remain at the consulate temporarily.

On the plane, Quentin kept trying to catch my eye, to find a chance to speak to me, but was always blocked by the guards.

Seeing his frustrated, anxious expression, a cruel spike of satisfaction shot through me.

Scared already, Quentin?

This is just the beginning.

When the plane landed, Quentin was taken to a secure safe house to await interrogation.

And I, as a "person of key interest," was put up in a designated hotel.

Soon, the director of the FSTI, Robert Langdon, came to see me.

Langdon wore a sharp suit, his gaze piercing, his entire presence intimidating.

His first words to me were:

"You're General Sinclair's granddaughter?"

I nodded.

At that, his tone softened almost imperceptibly.

"I trust you, Ava. You would not lie."

"However, we've conducted a preliminary interrogation of Quentin. He insists this is merely a matter of personal misconduct, that he has absolutely not betrayed the country. He claims you're acting out of spite."

"Katia also says that she and Quentin were just in a personal relationship, that she never asked about his work, and that the questions in their chat logs were just the curiosity of an ordinary person about a sensitive job."

"A personal relationship? Curiosity?"

I let out a scornful laugh, then took out my phone and opened the photo album.

"On more than one occasion, Quentin brought Katia to high-level FSTI functions as an undeclared guest."

"Katia repeatedly expressed her envy of my position to Quentin, saying she didn't want to be a housewife and hoped to have a respectable job like mine."

"So, he planned to use his authority to forge a letter of recommendation for Katia, to get her into a top-tier think tank that partners with us."

"I found the forged recommendation letter and application form on his computer."

"But for an organization like ours, that level of entanglement with a foreign national of unknown background is strictly forbidden."

As I finished, Director Langdon's eyes darkened.

He slammed his hand on the table.

"Reckless fool."