Her Vengeance is a Silent Waltz

My sister was dying, and my husband, Alex, refused to let me see her.

"Diamond's comfort is my priority," he said over the phone, his voice cold. "She's not comfortable with you there."

Diamond. The woman who supposedly took a bullet for him. A debt he was repaying with my life.

His repayment plan had already cost me my future. He stood by impassively as I was forced to sign sterilization papers, ensuring Diamond, who claimed the bullet had left her barren, would never have to see him have a child with another woman.

They smeared my name in the press, painting me as an unstable addict whose "violent outburst" led to my sister's hospitalization. At the funeral they planned without me, they announced their plan to send me to a "facility" for my own good.

The night before their wedding, he came home drunk. He grabbed me, his hands roaming my body in a grotesque parody of intimacy, and whispered her name. "Diamond."

Something inside me finally shattered. I shoved him off me, screaming my own name. The next morning, Diamond stood on our doorstep, a triumphant smile on her face, calling me a barren, washed-up musician who couldn't even keep her own sister alive.

Looking at them, the monster and his master, I felt nothing but a cold, clear resolve. I turned and walked away from the wreckage of my life. It was time to erase Erica Wade and build someone new. Someone who would burn their world to the ground.

Chapter 1

The smell of antiseptic was the first thing Erica noticed. It clung to her clothes, her hair, her skin. It was the smell of the last three weeks.

The smell of failure.

Her hand rested on the cool metal of the hospital payphone receiver. She didn't need to look at the number. She had dialed it a hundred times.

The line connected on the second ring.

"Wade." Alex's voice was flat. Devoid of warmth. The voice he used for work.

"Alex, it's me."

A pause. A sigh on the other end. "What is it, Erica? I'm busy."

"The doctors said... they said Jayda doesn't have much time. I need to see her. Please." Her own voice sounded foreign. Thin and brittle.

"We've been over this," he said. His tone was sharp now, impatient. "You can't."

"She's my sister. She's asking for me." Tears burned at the back of her eyes. She refused to let them fall. Crying didn't work anymore.

"And Diamond is my priority," he shot back. "She's not comfortable with you being there. Not after the stress you've caused."

The name hung in the air between them. Diamond.

Erica remembered a time, years ago, when Alex had held her hands. His were warm and strong. "I'll always protect you," he had said, his eyes sincere. "You and your music. That's my world."

That world was gone. Shattered.

"The stress I've caused?" she whispered into the phone. "Her men put my sister in this bed. Over a spilled drink."

"It was an accident. They were protecting her from a perceived threat," he recited, the words sounding rehearsed. "Diamond was shaken. You know how sensitive she is."

"And Jayda? Is she not sensitive? She's dying, Alex."

"Diamond's well-being is my responsibility. She saved my life. That is a debt I will spend my life repaying."

The lie was so practiced, so smooth, it slid out of him like a prayer. The faked assassination attempt. The bullet Diamond took for him, a wound she orchestrated herself. A story he believed with the conviction of a zealot. A story that had become the foundation for Erica's prison.

"So my sister's life is part of your repayment plan?"

"Don't be dramatic, Erica." The coldness in his voice was absolute. "You know the rules. You stay away. You don't make waves. Think about the alternative."

She knew the alternative. He didn't have to say it. He had shown her.

The memory rose, unbidden. A sterile clinic. The crisp white of the papers he'd forced her to sign. His face impassive as he stood by. Voluntary Sterilization. A procedure to ensure Diamond, who claimed the bullet had left her barren, would never have to suffer the indignity of seeing Alex have a child with another woman.

His "repayment" had demanded Erica's future. Her womanhood.

"Please," she said, one last time. The word was a shard of glass in her throat.

"It's done, Erica," he said. "Stop calling this number."

The line went dead.

She held the receiver for a long moment, the dial tone a flat, indifferent hum. It matched the silence inside her.

Slowly, she placed it back on the hook. Her fingers didn't tremble. They were numb. Everything was numb.

She walked out of the hospital, into the gray afternoon. The city air felt heavy, suffocating.

She had lost her music when he smashed her violin. She had lost her future when he signed away her fertility. Now, she was losing her sister.

She had begged. She had pleaded. She had tried to be the person he wanted, the quiet, compliant wife. It was all useless.

A new feeling began to crystalize in the void inside her. It was cold and hard and clear. Not hope. The opposite of hope.

It was resolve.

She walked to a small, discreet office building two blocks from the hospital. An appointment she had made under a different name.

A lawyer. An old family contact she had not spoken to in years.

She sat across from him, her back straight.

"I need to disappear," she said, her voice steady for the first time in months. "Completely. And I need to do it without my husband knowing."

She was done making waves. She was going to become the tide.