Chapter 2

• After everything that happened, I knew I had to move quickly. But I also understood that I couldn’t afford chaos. My exit needed to be quiet. I had to let things unfold on their own. This wasn’t about revenge, at least not immediately. This was about clarity, distance, and regaining control.
• I had nowhere else to go, so I checked into a hotel. It was quiet, mid-range, and entirely unremarkable. That was the point. I didn’t want luxury. I didn’t want anything familiar. I wanted to disappear into stillness, to fade into a room that smelled like someone else’s story. The walls were pale beige. The furniture was stiff and square. The window overlooked a street whose name I didn’t recognize.
• I sat beside that window, my knees drawn up, my mind unraveling without tears. I hadn’t cried. Not during the drive, not when I closed the door behind me, not even when I sat alone in that room and heard my own breath for the first time in hours. I felt strangely proud of that. I hadn’t let them break me.
• That was when I decided to call my mother.
• I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I just needed to hear her voice. Maybe I wanted to believe that this time, something would be different. Part of me, no matter how hardened, still hoped that a mother could choose her daughter over everything else.
• I tapped her name. The phone rang three times before she answered.
• “Noelle?” Her voice carried the same clipped tone it always had. It wasn’t warmth. It wasn’t even curiosity. It was irritation.
• “I just left the house,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “I walked in on Roman and Alessia. Together.”
• The silence that followed was suffocating.
• Then she sighed, a long breath laced with disappointment. It was the same sigh she gave when I asked too many questions as a child or when I did something that embarrassed her in front of her friends.
• “Noelle,” she said slowly, “Alessia has been through a lot. You know that. She didn’t grow up with the stability you had. She needed support.”
• “And that gave her the right to sleep with my husband?” I asked, my tone even, my anger buried beneath every word.
• “She’s your sister in every way that matters,” my mother replied. “We took her in. She was broken. And Roman… well, men have needs. You’ve been so busy. So driven.”
• The coldness in my chest grew heavier.
• “You’re blaming me,” I said. “You’re actually blaming me.”
• “I’m saying you shouldn’t act rashly. Don’t do something you’ll regret. Think about the company. Think about your future. Public drama will only make things worse.”
• Not once did she ask if I was okay.
• Not once did she say what they did was wrong.
• “I just needed to hear it for myself,” I said quietly. “I needed to know you were never on my side.”
• Her tone didn’t shift. “Don’t make this more of a mess than it already is.”
• I ended the call without saying goodbye.
• I should have known better. She had never picked me before. She wasn’t going to start now.
• I turned the phone face down on the nightstand and stared out the window. For a long time, I stayed still. The city lights below blinked like messages I couldn’t read. But inside me, something began to align. Not a plan exactly. Just a certainty. A calm before something inevitable.
• I stood and walked to the small desk across the room. I opened my laptop, and the pale glow from the screen lit my face like a dare. My fingers hovered for just a moment before they started to type.
• ⸻
• To: Westlake & Rhames LLP
• Subject: Divorce Filing
• Effective immediately, I am requesting the initiation of divorce proceedings between myself and Roman Vale. Please proceed discreetly. There should be no media involvement and no communication with Mr. Vale’s team until all legal protections are confirmed.
• ⸻
• I attached the documents I had quietly prepared a month ago. The suspicion had been there for weeks, lingering in every late return, in the perfume that clung to his clothes, in the way his eyes stopped meeting mine. I didn’t want to believe it then. But now I had no choice.
• I could have removed him from the company immediately. But I didn’t.
• Let them think I am broken. Let them feel safe. Let them grow bold.
• I opened a new tab and typed a message.
• ⸻
• To: M. Chen
• Subject: Temporary Oversight
• Mara, effective immediately, I am stepping away from all public operations. You are to maintain all active projects and report only to me through our secure channel. Do not notify Roman or Alessia. Do not disclose my location. You are now the firewall.
• ⸻
• Mara would understand. She had been with me since the beginning, when this company existed only in sketches on napkins and sleepless nights. She knew the weight of what we built. She would not let it collapse.
• When that was done, I reached into my bag and pulled out the burner phone Julian had given me. I had kept it untouched for over a year, waiting for the moment everything might fall apart.
• I tapped his number.
• He answered on the first ring.
• “Noelle.”
• “It’s time,” I said.
• “You filed?”
• “Yes. Quietly.”
• “You’re not removing him from the company yet?”
• “No. Not yet.”
• “You’re waiting for him to make the first move?”
• “Yes.”
• He paused before responding. “We’ll start the transition. I’ll send the new identity routing. You’ll travel under the name Juliana Cross.”
• I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “No trace. No leaks.”
• “I’ll handle it. When do you want to leave?”
• “Tonight.”
• “Consider it done.”
• We ended the call without saying anything else.
• I crossed the room and dropped my wedding ring into the trash bin. I laid the roses next to it. The ones I had bought to celebrate love now marked the grave of it.
• Before leaving, I tore a sheet of stationery from the hotel drawer and wrote one line.
• They thought I would break. They should have worried I’d rebuild.
• Then I zipped up my bag, opened the door, and walked into the beginning of a storm they never saw coming.