Chapter 41

• Emerson
• The tension between Raven and me had been boiling under the surface for weeks. Every conversation felt like a game of chess, and I was always ten steps behind, fumbling with my pieces while she moved hers with precision and grace. At first, I had brushed it off, thinking that maybe it was just the stress of work or the weight of our marriage crumbling around us. But now, it was more than that. Raven had changed, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was hiding something from me—something big.
• It was late one evening, and the house was eerily quiet. I stood by the kitchen window, staring out into the darkness, nursing a glass of whiskey as I turned everything over in my mind. My thoughts kept returning to the same place: Lila. Raven had to know about the affair. There was no other explanation for the way she’d been acting, the way she seemed to glide through our life as if it didn’t matter anymore, as if she was playing some larger game I couldn’t even begin to understand.