Chapter 2 - THE RED FLAGS IN THE ARCHIVES
Megan stood frozen under the harsh chandelier light, her face flushing crimson. She tried to laugh it off, but the sound was thin and brittle.
"You're making a scene over nothing, Elena," she sneered, grabbing her purse off the table. "You always have to ruin everything with your drama."
She didn't wait for her husband. She turned on her high heels and stormed out of L’Arche. Ryan slowly got up, picked up her forgotten coat, gave me a long, unreadable look, and followed her out without saying a word.
The rest of the dinner was a ghost town. People spoke in hushed tones, casting sympathetic glances my way while Daniel sat beside me in rigid silence. When we finally got home, the moment the front door closed, Daniel let out a frustrated sigh.
"Elena, did you really have to embarrass her like that in front of thirty people?" he said, throwing his keys onto the marble console. "She was just being drunk and stupid. You made it weird."
I stared at him, feeling a hollow ache in my chest. "She sat on your lap and wrapped her arm around you while her husband was sitting right there. And I made it weird?"
"It meant nothing!" Daniel snapped, though he couldn't meet my eyes. "Why do you always assume the worst?"
Instead of screaming, I walked into my home office and locked the door behind me. My mind was racing. For twelve years, Megan had been my shadow. We had met in college, built our careers in the same city, and stood by each other through thick and thin. Or so I had believed.
Sitting at my desk, I opened my laptop and started digging through old photos, messages, and social media posts spanning the last decade. Looking back with clear eyes, the pattern was blinding.
Whenever I bought a designer dress, Megan bought the exact same one in a different color a week later. When Daniel and I bought our beach house in Hamptons, Megan pressured Ryan into taking out a mortgage they couldn't afford just to live four blocks away. Every time I had a major win at my marketing firm, Megan would drop subtle, passive-aggressive comments in public—reminding everyone of my past failures or laughing at my expense under the guise of "inside jokes."
And then there were the photos with Daniel.
In almost every group photo from the past three years, Megan was standing right next to Daniel—never Ryan. Her hand was always resting on Daniel’s shoulder, her head leaning just a bit too close to his chest.
Suddenly, a notification popped up on my phone. It was an anonymous text message containing a short, compressed video file.
May you like
I downloaded it. The footage showed a quiet corner outside the restaurant’s restroom from thirty minutes before the incident. Daniel was leaning against the wall, looking slightly unsteady. Megan walked up to him, put her hands directly on his chest, and whispered something in his ear. Daniel didn't push her away. In fact, he reached out and patted her waist before she pulled him back toward our table.
My hands trembled on the keyboard. This wasn't an isolated drunken mistake. It was a deliberate, calculated pattern—and Daniel was letting her get away with it.
