Chapter 4 - Suite 402
The downtown Austin streets were surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night, the usual hum of Sixth Street revelers muted a few blocks away in the sleek commercial district near Lady Bird Lake. The high-rise at 400 Congress Avenue loomed against the midnight sky, its glass facade reflecting the amber glow of streetlamps.
I parked my sedan in a public lot two blocks away, my heels clicking sharply against the concrete as I walked toward the building. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs, each beat a stark reminder of how completely my life had derailed in less than twelve hours.
The anonymous text message burned in my mind like a brand. *Check the corporate registry for Calloway Consulting, Suite 402 downtown. Ask about the woman who shares his business account.*
Wes didn't know I knew about his office building. He believed I thought Calloway Consulting was just a registered LLC he used for his occasional freelance IT work—a side hustle he claimed brought in a few extra thousand dollars a year to help offset the household expenses. But as I walked up the granite steps of the high-rise and pushed through the heavy glass revolving doors, I knew the reality was going to be far uglier than a few missed freelance invoices.
The lobby was virtually deserted, save for a security guard scrolling through his phone behind a circular marble desk.
I pasted on my most practiced, corporate-wife smile—the polite, non-threatening expression I used when accompanying Wes to company holiday parties—and approached the desk.
“Good evening,” I said, letting my voice drop into a smooth, conversational register. “I’m Mara Calloway. I’m looking for my husband, Wes Calloway. He’s up on the fourth floor wrapping up some paperwork for Calloway Consulting, and he left his phone in my car.”
The security guard looked up, sizing me up in a fraction of a second. My tailored blazer, my wedding ring sparkling under the recessed lobby lighting, and my calm, authoritative tone clearly checked all his internal boxes for a legitimate visitor.
“Evening, Mrs. Calloway,” the guard said, offering a polite nod. He turned his computer monitor slightly. “Let me check the visitor log… Ah, Mr. Calloway signed in around eight-thirty tonight. He’s up in Suite 402.”
My breath caught in my throat. Wes wasn’t at his sister’s house in Round Rock. He wasn't dealing with a family emergency with his children. He was sitting in his downtown office building at midnight on a Saturday night.
“Thank you so much,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I know the elevator code, so I’ll just head right up and surprise him.”
“Take the east bank of elevators, ma’am. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
I turned away before he could notice the slight tremor in my hands. I walked briskly to the elevators, pressing the call button with a finger that felt ice cold. The digital display blinked downward, the soft *ding* echoing through the cavernous lobby a moment later.
As the mirrored doors slid open, I stepped inside and pressed the button for floor four.
The ride was agonizingly brief. When the doors opened again, I stepped out onto a dimly lit carpeted hallway. The entire floor seemed abandoned; the corporate offices flanking the corridor were dark, their nameplates shadowed in the twilight. Only one suite at the very end of the hall emitted a thin strip of yellow light from beneath its frosted glass door.
*Suite 402: Calloway Consulting.*
I crept down the hallway, every footfall muffled by the industrial carpeting. As I drew closer to the door, a faint murmur of voices drifted out into the corridor.
One voice belonged to Wes. Low, urgent, defensive.
The other voice belonged to a woman.
I stopped just outside the frosted glass, holding my breath. My hand hovered over the brass doorknob, my fingers curling into a tight fist.
“...don’t understand how badly this could blow up, Chloe,” Wes was saying, his voice laced with a panic I had never heard directed at a client or a colleague. “Mara is already suspicious. She kicked me and the kids out of the house tonight because of the birthday incident.”
A sharp, cynical laugh answered him—a woman’s laugh, clear and confident.
“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you used our joint business account to pay for your wife’s anniversary earrings, Wes,” the woman snapped back. “You’re the one who told me you were handling your family. If she digs into the LLC filings, she’s going to see that Calloway Consulting isn’t just an IT side hustle. She’s going to see *every* penny we’ve moved over the last year.”
The room seemed to spin violently.
*Joint business account.*
*Every penny we’ve moved over the last year.*
My mind raced backward through the timeline of our marriage. Eight months ago, Wes had convinced me to consolidate a portion of my pre-marriage savings into a joint investment account to help us secure the mortgage on our suburban home. He had sworn up and down that he was doing the same with his consulting revenue.
He hadn't been investing in our future. He had been funneling our assets somewhere else entirely.
Before I could process the blinding wave of rage and betrayal, my hand twisted the doorknob.
The door wasn’t locked. It swung open silently, the heavy brass latch clicking softly against the frame as I pushed it wide and stepped into the brightly lit office.
Wes froze mid-sentence, his face turning a sickly, ghostly white as he looked up from the mahogany desk. Standing beside him, leaning casually against a sleek leather filing cabinet with a cup of coffee in her hand, was a stunning woman in her early thirties with sharp dark hair and an expensive silk blouse.
May you like
Her eyes widened in shock as she locked gazes with me.
And in that fraction of a second, standing in the harshly lit office of Calloway Consulting, I realized that the nightmare I had walked into tonight was only the prologue to something infinitely darker.
