"Hold the elevator!"

Chloe's voice echoed sharply down the sterile corridor.

The taller officer jammed his heavy boot into the metal track, stopping the doors from sliding shut.

Chloe trotted toward us, Ethan leaning heavily against her shoulder. His eyes locked onto mine, burning with an intense, unyielding hostility.

"We forgot to give you the printed bank statements," Chloe said, handing a thick manila folder to the officer.

I yanked against the cold metal cuffs biting into my wrists. "My purse. The front pocket."

"Quiet, ma'am," the officer warned, shifting his grip on my arm.

"No!" I shoved my shoulder against the elevator wall. "My tablet is in that bag. It has our entire life on it. Videos. Untampered, raw videos. Let me prove it."

Ethan scoffed, his upper lip curling in disgust. "More photoshop?"

"Videos cannot be photoshopped like that in real-time, Ethan! Just let them look!"

The second officer sighed, unzipping my confiscated leather tote. He pulled out the silver tablet.

"Passcode?" he asked, tapping the dark glass.

"Zero, eight, two, four," I said, keeping my gaze fixed on Ethan. "August 24th. The day you asked me to move in with you."

Ethan didn't blink. His expression remained utterly blank, a terrifying void where his love for me used to live.

The tablet chimed, the screen glowing brightly in the dim hallway.

"Open the favorites folder," I instructed the cop, my voice shaking. "Play the first video."

The officer tapped the screen. Ethan's own voice instantly filled the quiet space.

*“Serena, stop recording, I’m covered in mud!”*

The cop held the screen up for Ethan to see. On the display, Ethan knelt in a massive puddle outside Mario's Diner. Rain poured over his shoulders, plastering his shirt to his chest. He held a small velvet box in his hands.

*“I don't care about the rain,”* the digital Ethan laughed loudly. *“Just say yes so I can stand up.”*

I watched the real Ethan. His eyes darted across the moving image. A tiny muscle feathered in his jaw.

"Look at your face," I pleaded, stepping closer to the door. "Look at the way you look at me. That isn't fake. You cannot fake that kind of joy."

The officer swiped to the next file. A travel vlog from our winter trip to Aspen.

*“She’s making me eat vegan marshmallows,”* Ethan groaned to the camera, pulling me into his side and kissing my temple. *“Save me.”*

"We were there for a week," I said, tears blurring my vision. "You broke your ski pole on the second day. We spent the rest of the trip by the fire in the cabin."

Ethan stepped closer to the tablet. His brow furrowed deeply, a shadow of doubt finally crossing his features.

Chloe immediately inserted herself between Ethan and the glowing screen.

"Officer, pause that," she ordered, pointing a manicured nail directly at the glass. "Look at the lighting around her hair."

The cop frowned, tilting the tablet. "What about it?"

"It's a deepfake," Chloe stated flatly.

"A what?!" I shrieked, struggling violently against the handcuffs.

"AI-generated video," Chloe explained, turning to Ethan with wide, sympathetic eyes. "I read an article about stalkers using this technology. They take a few real photos from social media and map a face onto an actor's body."

"That is insane!" I yelled, my throat burning. "Who would hire an actor to kneel in a dirty puddle?"

"Someone deeply unwell," Chloe countered smoothly. She snatched the tablet from the officer's hands. "Look at his smile here. It's totally unnatural. Ethan, do you ever smile like that?"

Ethan stared at the paused frame. He reached up and touched his thick white bandage.

"No," Ethan muttered. "It looks forced. Like I'm reading a script."

"Because you aren't!" I screamed. "You were happy! We were happy!"

"And the voice," Chloe continued, tapping the speaker grill. "It sounds metallic. Voice cloning software is incredibly cheap now."

"You are a monster," I spat at her. "You are erasing five years of his life just to steal him back!"

"I am protecting him from a predator," Chloe shot back, her tone sharp and righteous.

She scrolled further down the gallery, stopping on a behind-the-scenes clip from our engagement shoot. We were dancing in a sunlit greenhouse, my arms wrapped around his neck.

"Notice how she never shows the raw files?" Chloe asked the cops, holding the screen up like a piece of damning evidence. "Everything is edited. Filtered. Perfectly staged to look like a romance movie."

"It was a professional photoshoot!" I argued, desperation clawing at my chest. "Of course it's edited! The photographer sent us those clips!"

"It's a stalker's shrine," Ethan interrupted.

His voice cut through the noise like a heavy blade. He snatched the tablet from Chloe and shoved it hard into the officer's chest.

"I've seen enough," Ethan said.

"Ethan, please," I begged, dropping to my knees on the hard linoleum floor. The metal cuffs dug painfully into my skin. "Look at my eyes. You know me. You know my voice."

He looked down at me. The disgust in his gaze was absolute, devoid of even a shred of pity.

"I see a stranger," he said coldly. "A pathetic, delusional stranger who hired a thug to crack my skull open so I couldn't marry the woman I actually love."

"I am your fiancée!"

"Chloe is my fiancée," he snarled.

My heart stopped beating. The fluorescent lights overhead seemed to flicker and dim.

"What?" I choked out.

Chloe held up her left hand. A massive, glittering diamond rested on her ring finger.

It wasn't my ring. It was entirely new.

"He asked me this morning," Chloe smiled, her eyes gleaming with wicked, undeniable victory. "Right before you sent your goon to kill him."

"You're engaged?" The words tasted like ash on my tongue.

"Take her away," Ethan ordered the police, turning his back to me entirely. "I want a restraining order filed by tonight."

The taller officer hauled me to my feet by my armpits.

"You're making a mistake!" I thrashed against the cop's grip, my sneakers skidding on the floor. "She's lying to you! She's stealing your life!"

Ethan ignored me. He wrapped his arms tightly around Chloe's waist, burying his face in her hair.

"I love you," I heard him whisper to her.

The officer shoved me backward into the elevator car.

"Watch your head," the cop grunted, pressing the lobby button on the panel.

The metal doors began to slide shut.

Through the narrowing gap, I saw Chloe look over Ethan's shoulder. Her lips curled into a terrifying smirk. She mouthed a single, silent word at me.

*Mine.*

The doors slammed together, sealing me inside the metal box.

The officers stood in complete silence as the elevator descended. My tablet sat tucked under the cop's arm, holding all the beautiful memories Ethan had just violently discarded.

He really believed her. He genuinely thought I was a violent, obsessive stranger who manipulated digital files to trap him.

I slumped against the handrail, my chest heaving as silent tears tracked down my face.

The elevator dinged at the ground floor.

The doors opened to a crowded, chaotic hospital lobby.

"Keep walking," the officer commanded, nudging my shoulder forward.

We marched through the sliding glass doors into the freezing night air. A police cruiser idled at the curb, its red and blue lights painting the concrete in harsh strokes.

The cop opened the back door and pushed my head down to clear the frame.

As I slid onto the hard plastic seat, a bright flash erupted from the sidewalk.

A man stood under the flickering streetlamp, lowering a heavy camera with a long telephoto lens. He wore a dark hoodie pulled low over his brow, obscuring his face.

He didn't run. He just smiled, tapping his camera twice before melting entirely into the shadows.

He had been waiting for me.