My Husband's Twisted Secret Life

Name: My Husband's Twisted Secret Life
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Gavin

Short stories | Completed

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My husband took me to a secluded villa for the weekend to honor the fifth anniversary of his sister's death. But I found her alive, laughing on the patio with him and my parents. They were bouncing a little boy on their laps-a boy with my husband's hair and his "dead" sister's eyes. I heard Mark call me his "dutiful, grieving wife," laughing about how easy I was to fool. My own mother looked at Annelise with a love she had never once shown me. My entire five-year marriage was a performance designed to keep me occupied while they lived their real lives in secret. He didn't just confess; he told me I was nothing but a "convenient solution." Then he revealed their final plan: they had already arranged to have me involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, using my fabricated "grief" as the reason. I ran. After setting a fire as a diversion, I hid in a ditch by the main road, my life in ashes. With nowhere else to turn, I made a desperate call to the one person I knew my husband feared: his biggest rival.

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Chapter 10

The day before yesterday 10:08

Chapter 1

My husband took me to a secluded villa for the weekend to honor the fifth anniversary of his sister's death.

But I found her alive, laughing on the patio with him and my parents. They were bouncing a little boy on their laps-a boy with my husband's hair and his "dead" sister's eyes.

I heard Mark call me his "dutiful, grieving wife," laughing about how easy I was to fool. My own mother looked at Annelise with a love she had never once shown me. My entire five-year marriage was a performance designed to keep me occupied while they lived their real lives in secret.

He didn't just confess; he told me I was nothing but a "convenient solution." Then he revealed their final plan: they had already arranged to have me involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, using my fabricated "grief" as the reason.

I ran. After setting a fire as a diversion, I hid in a ditch by the main road, my life in ashes. With nowhere else to turn, I made a desperate call to the one person I knew my husband feared: his biggest rival.

Chapter 1

The lie was five years old, and it had a name. Annelise.

I stood shivering in the manicured gardens of the secluded villa, hidden behind a thick, fragrant curtain of overgrown jasmine. The scent, usually a comfort, was cloying tonight, thick with the smell of rain and deceit. A fine mist clung to my skin, seeping into the thin fabric of my dress, a dress Mark had picked out for this "restful weekend away." A weekend to help me cope with the anniversary of his sister's tragic death.

Except Annelise wasn't dead. She was standing on the flagstone patio not twenty feet away, bathed in the warm, golden light spilling from the French doors. She was laughing, a sound I hadn't heard in half a decade, her head thrown back as she looked up at my husband. My Mark. He was smiling down at her, a gentle, loving expression I hadn't seen on his face in years, and bounced a small child on his hip. A little boy with Mark's dark hair and Annelise's bright eyes.

My own parents were there, too. My mother, her hand resting on Annelise's arm, her face alight with a joy I had never been able to inspire. My father stood beside Mark, clapping him on the shoulder, a proud patriarch presiding over his true family.

"He looks more like you every day," my mother said, her voice carrying clearly in the damp night air.

"He has your stubborn chin, though," Annelise replied, her voice a ghostly echo from a life I thought was buried. She reached out and tweaked the boy's nose.

My mind refused to process it. It was a dream. A nightmare. Annelise had died in a car crash. We'd held a funeral. I had spent months comforting a shattered Mark, holding my own grieving parents together. I had built my life around the empty space she'd left behind.

"Are you sure Clara suspects nothing?" my father's voice was a low rumble, laced with a familiar, dismissive impatience.

Mark scoffed, the sound sharp and ugly. "Clara suspects what I tell her to suspect. She's so wrapped up in playing the dutiful, grieving wife she wouldn't notice the truth if it bit her. She still thinks this weekend is about honoring Annelise's memory."

A wave of nausea washed over me, so violent I had to press a hand to my mouth. The world tilted, the jasmine vines seeming to twist and writhe around me. *Dutiful. Grieving. Wife.* The words were acid.

Then I saw it. Hanging around Annelise's neck, catching the light, was a unique, antique silver locket. It was shaped like a songbird, intricately carved, with two tiny sapphire eyes. My grandmother's locket. My mother had told me, with tears in her eyes, that it had been lost in a robbery years before I was even married. A priceless family heirloom, gone forever. Yet there it was, resting against the skin of the woman who was supposed to be a ghost.

The pieces of the puzzle clicked into place with sickening speed. The sham marriage. The lies. My entire life, a carefully constructed stage play designed to keep me occupied, to control my inheritance, while they kept their perfect, precious Annelise safe and hidden away.

I wasn't a wife or a daughter. I was a placeholder. A tool.

Rage, cold and pure, burned through the shock. I had to get out. Now.

I backed away slowly, my movements clumsy, my feet sinking into the soft, damp earth. A twig snapped under my heel. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet night.

Every head on the patio turned in my direction. Mark's smile vanished, replaced by a mask of cold fury. "Clara."

My name on his lips was a curse. I didn't wait. I turned and ran. I fled through the garden, thorns catching at my dress, the wet leaves slapping against my face. I didn't know where I was going, only that I had to get away from the warm, golden light of that house and the cold, dead thing my life had become.

I reached the long, gravel driveway just as Mark's hand clamped down on my arm, his grip like iron. "Let go of me," I gasped, struggling against him.

"Stop it," he hissed, his voice devoid of any warmth. There was no anger, no panic. Only a chilling, triumphant finality. "It's over, Clara. We know you saw."

"You lied to me! All of you!" The words tore from my throat, raw and ragged.

"We did what was necessary," he said, his face inches from mine. The scent of his cologne, a scent I used to associate with comfort, now smelled like decay. "Annelise needed to disappear for a while. You were a convenient solution."

He started to drag me back toward the house. I dug my heels in, my heart hammering against my ribs. This couldn't be happening.

"It's no use fighting," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that made my blood run cold. "The paperwork is already filed. Dr. Evans has had you under observation for months. Your 'profound grief,' your 'instability.' It was all so easy. We're having you committed. For your own good, of course."

Involuntarily committed. A psychiatric facility. The words slammed into me, stealing my breath. This wasn't just an escape from a lie anymore. It was an escape from a cage they had been building around me for years. They wouldn't just discard me; they would erase me, lock me away where my version of the truth would be nothing more than the ravings of a madwoman.

Adrenaline surged through me, a primal, desperate need to survive. I stomped down hard on his expensive leather shoe, and when he grunted in pain, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second, I wrenched my arm free. I scrambled toward the detached garage, fumbling with the side door. It was unlocked.

Inside, the air was thick with the smell of gasoline and old wood. My eyes darted around, landing on a red can of fuel next to a lawnmower. An idea, wild and reckless, sparked in the darkness of my mind. A diversion.

My hands shook as I unscrewed the cap and splashed the contents onto a pile of oily rags in the corner. I didn't let myself think. I found a book of matches on a dusty workbench, my fingers fumbling with the flimsy cardboard. The first match fizzled out. The second one caught.

I tossed it onto the rags. The whoosh of the flames erupting was terrifying and beautiful. Smoke began to billow, thick and acrid. I didn't wait to see more. I bolted out the door, leaving it wide open, and sprinted into the enveloping darkness of the storm that was now breaking in earnest.

Rain lashed down, plastering my hair to my face, soaking me to the bone in seconds. Behind me, I heard shouting, the first panicked cries as they saw the smoke. I didn't look back. I just ran, my lungs burning, my bare feet slipping on the muddy ground, until the villa was just a distant, hateful glow behind me.

I finally collapsed near the main road, hidden in a ditch, my body trembling uncontrollably from cold and terror. My purse. I still had my small evening bag clutched in my hand. My phone was in there, but they would track it. Everything I owned was a part of their web.

Except for one thing. A business card, tucked into a forgotten side pocket. I'd found it on Mark's desk months ago, a sleek, black card with a silver embossed name. Julian Thorne. His biggest business rival. The one man Mark truly feared. I'd kept it on a whim, a tiny act of rebellion I hadn't even understood at the time.

With numb, shaking fingers, I pulled out the card and my phone. I powered it on, my thumb hovering over the numbers. This was insane. He wouldn't help me. Why would he? But what other choice did I have? Be locked away forever, or take the one-in-a-million chance?

I dialed the number. It rang once. Twice.

A voice answered, deep and cold as the night. "Speak."