CHAPTER 2:THE FIRST CRACK

I didn’t cry when he left me—I cried when I realized he already had, long before the door shut.

The envelope was still on the table when I woke up.

I’d fallen asleep on the couch, makeup smudged, red dress wrinkled, divorce letter folded like a paper cut I kept pressing against my chest. As if rereading it might make it say something different. As if the pain would sting less with repetition.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

“I filed for divorce. I’m sorry.”

Short. Clinical. The kind of apology you give to a stranger you accidentally bumped into—not your wife of two years.

There was no we need to talk, no I’ve been unhappy. Just...closure in an envelope. No explanation. No tears. No goodbye.

And the worst part?

A piece of me wasn’t surprised.

Because deep down, the first crack didn’t happen last night.

It happened the moment I started shrinking myself to fit into the version of his life he wanted me to be in.

---

Six Months Ago

“Rae, we need to move the Paris trip.”

I looked up from my laptop, halfway through pitching a new rebrand for a high-profile client. “Move it where?”

Xander pulled his tie loose, already pacing. “Next quarter. I’ve got back-to-back board meetings and the fund is looking to double down on acquisitions.”

“But we planned it six months ago.”

“I know.” His voice softened, eyes flicking to me like that would help. “It’s just bad timing.”

I didn’t argue.

Even though it was our honeymoon redo. Even though I’d already cleared my schedule. Even though I’d spent hours making sure every reservation, every dress, every dinner spot was perfect.

Instead, I swallowed the disappointment and nodded. “Okay.”

That was the first time I ignored my own wants for his convenience.

I’d do it again. And again. Until I didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror anymore.

---

Back in the present, I sat on the floor of our—no, his—penthouse, surrounded by shards of a life I thought was solid. He didn’t even pack everything. Just enough to show he wasn’t bluffing.

Half a closet.

The bathroom drawer was empty except for my toothbrush and a dried-up bottle of his aftershave.

He didn’t leave a note.

He didn’t even take the photo of us in Santorini.

That stung most of all.

Because it meant he could walk away from us without looking back.

---

Later that day, I sat across from Maya in her tiny office above her yoga studio, chewing on a granola bar like it could fill the gaping hole in my chest.

“You look like you murdered someone,” she said. “And not in a hot, femme fatale way.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

She dropped into the chair beside me. “So what now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You going to fight the divorce?”

I shook my head. “Why bother? If he wants out, I won’t beg.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s big talk for someone who still wears his name like a tattoo.”

I glanced at the ring on my finger, shining like it still meant something.

Then I took it off.

Slowly. Deliberately.

“Not anymore.”

---

Flashback: The Beginning of the End

We used to laugh in bed for hours.

Talk about names for kids we weren’t sure we wanted. Make pancakes at midnight. Kiss like the world might end before morning.

But something changed after his company went public.

He started missing dinner. Then weekends. Then anniversaries. His phone became an extra limb—always buzzing, always demanding. His eyes stopped lingering on me like they used to.

And mine?

Mine started searching for answers in the silences between us.

He used to touch me like I was treasure.

Then he stopped touching me at all.

---

Back to Present

That night, I poured myself a glass of wine and opened my laptop.

I didn’t cry.

I built a new resume.

New name: Raven Black.

New email. New headshot. New rules.

Rule one: No more shrinking. Rule two: No more saving anyone but myself.

And rule three?

Never, ever fall for a man who can leave you like it costs him nothing.

A soft ping echoed from my inbox.

I clicked it absentmindedly—probably spam.

But when I saw the sender, my blood froze.

Subject: Merger Proposal: Vale Corporation + Aurum Agency

From: x.vale@valecorp.com

Message: Let’s discuss business, Raven. Tomorrow. 10 AM.

I stared at the screen, pulse spiking.

Xander.

The man who left me...

...now wanted to merge with the company I built from scratch?

Game on.

“I married a stranger. I just didn’t realize it until he wanted to do business with me.”

I didn’t sleep.

Not because I was heartbroken. I wasn’t there yet. Not because I was angry—though that simmered under my skin like a volcano too polite to erupt.

No, I didn’t sleep because I was calculating.

Xander Vale wanted to meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a merger—a business deal between the empire he inherited and the one I built with grit, sweat, and no trust fund in sight.

The man couldn’t even stay married to me, but now he wanted a professional partnership?

The audacity had stretch marks.

I closed my laptop at 4:12 a.m., lips pressed into a flat line. Then I walked to my closet and picked out the most calculated armor I owned—a black, fitted pantsuit with shoulder pads sharp enough to draw blood and heels that said try me, I dare you.

By the time I stepped into the elevator, I wasn’t Raven Vale, abandoned wife.

I was Raven Black.

And I wasn’t here to negotiate peace.

---

The conference room at Aurum’s downtown office was all glass walls and power dynamics. Maya—bless her savagely loyal heart—had rearranged the entire day to block off this meeting.

“He’s early,” she whispered, peeking through the tinted door.

“Of course he is,” I muttered. “Xander Vale never arrives late to his own self-importance.”

She gave me a low whistle. “Damn, Rae. You’re running cold today.”

“No,” I said, fixing my blazer. “I’m just not warm anymore.”

I pushed open the door—and there he was.

Sitting at the head of the table like he still owned every room he walked into.

God, he looked good. Which was infuriating.

Hair slightly longer than I remembered, a perfectly tailored navy suit, watch worth more than my first car. He didn’t look like a man who’d wrecked a marriage. He looked like a cover model for Forbes’ “Most Eligible Billionaire Bastards.”

“Raven,” he said, standing.

I didn’t extend my hand.

“Mr. Vale,” I said coolly. “You wanted to talk business. So talk.”

---

He sat back down slowly, as if reorienting. I watched his eyes sweep over me, not with affection, but with something worse: calculation.

He didn’t expect this version of me.

Not the hardened edges. Not the calm detachment. Not the woman who refused to flinch.

“The merger is mutually beneficial,” he said, sliding a folder toward me. “Aurum handles luxury branding. Vale Corp is diversifying. Our interests align.”

I didn’t touch the folder.

“You didn’t think to mention this while we were married?” I asked, voice flat. “Or during one of those nights you were ‘working late’?”

His jaw flexed.

“I wanted to keep personal and business separate.”

“Too late,” I said. “You brought it to my office.”

He paused. Then, quieter, “I didn’t know how else to see you.”

There it was.

A crack.

Not the one in my armor—his.

And it wasn’t nearly wide enough for me to fall for again.

---

“I’ll consider the proposal,” I said, standing. “But next time, send your assistant.”

“Raven—”

“Don’t,” I snapped, voice ice. “You left. You made your choice. This isn’t dinner. This isn’t us. This is business. So treat it like that, or don’t show up again.”

He stood too. And for the first time since I met Xander Vale, he looked...lost.

“Was I really that terrible?” he asked quietly.

I turned to the door.

“No,” I said. “You were worse.”

Back at my office, I opened the proposal folder out of spite.

And immediately froze.

There, tucked inside the contract, was a single handwritten note.

Four words. No signature.

“You don’t know everything.”

“Just when I thought he’d broken everything—he reminded me he still knew where I hid my secrets.”

I read the note again.

You don’t know everything.

It wasn’t threatening. It wasn’t even defensive.

It was… personal.

Like a whisper slipped under the door in the middle of the night. Like he knew exactly how to poke the bruise he left behind without touching it.

I stared at the words until the ink blurred.

“Tell me I’m not seeing things,” I muttered, holding up the note.

Maya squinted. “He put a love letter in a corporate proposal?”

“Hardly a love letter,” I said. “More like a breadcrumb.”

She flopped into the chair across from me. “What if he’s right?”

“About what?”

She held up the paper. “That you don’t know everything. You sure you’re ready to play hardball with a man who might still be five moves ahead?”

I hated that she had a point.

But I hated even more that he knew it.

---

That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about our last year together.

The small absences. The things he didn’t say. The trips he canceled. The sudden secrecy around his phone. The private dinners he never invited me to. The colleague I’d met once—Vivienne, all red lips and calculated glances.

It didn’t add up then.

And now?

Now I was starting to think Xander Vale didn’t just leave me.

He may have been protecting me.

Which made me furious.

Because if there’s one thing I hated more than being abandoned, it was being shielded like I couldn’t handle the truth.

---

The next day, I did something reckless.

I called him.

Just to test the water. See if he’d bite.

He answered on the second ring. “Raven.”

“You left a note in your proposal,” I said. No hello. No small talk.

“I hoped you’d see it.”

“You said I don’t know everything.”

He was quiet.

“Was that a threat?” I pushed.

“No,” he said softly. “It was a regret.”

I wasn’t ready for that. Not from him.

“Then why leave?” I demanded. “Why end it like that?”

“Because there were things happening you couldn’t know. Things I couldn’t bring you into.”

“Try me.”

Another pause. Then: “If I’d stayed, you would’ve gotten caught in it.”

“In what, Xander?”

“Something dangerous. And I couldn’t risk it.”

My breath caught.

This wasn’t about our marriage.

This was about something bigger.

---

That night, I opened an old file I hadn’t touched in months. My own research. My suspicions. Contracts, email logs, timelines.

Something had never sat right about the last deal his company made before the divorce. A shadow acquisition. A name I didn’t recognize buried in a shell corporation.

Eros Holdings.

Back then, I didn’t dig too deep. I was too busy trying to keep our marriage from unraveling.

But now?

Now I had nothing to lose.

---

I made one call.

To a woman who owed me a favor. A cybersecurity expert who’d hacked a state senator’s phone for me once in college.

“Rae?” she answered. “Long time. What do you need?”

“Something’s off,” I said. “I think my ex-husband might’ve tanked our marriage to protect me.”

There was a beat of silence. Then she said, “Send everything you’ve got. And whatever you do—don’t trust what’s on the surface.”

I went to bed that night with a knot in my stomach.

Not grief.

Not regret.

Instinct.

At 3:14 a.m., my phone buzzed.

It was a message from a restricted number.

Just one sentence.

“They know you’re looking.”