Shattered Melody : Five years of betrayal

In the third month of indulging in the fresh pleasures of the nightclub, I ran into an old friend of my ex-husband.

He saw me and it was as if he had seen a ghost, "Kayla, where are you? ！ "Didn't you die? Adrien was looking for you like crazy!"

I snorted, "An ex, can she control me?"

The other person thought he had misunderstood and shouted loudly, "What did you say?"

I was impatient and shouted into his ear, "I said, I don't care about this second-hand item called Adrien!"

When I said this, the nightclub fell silent instantly. Everyone was staring at the corner. I subconsciously turned my head, and in the darkness, that face had bulging veins, and it was Adrien.

The ex-husband who had slept with my best friend countless times before marriage.

My fingertips brushed the keys, settling on the final note. The last whisper of "Moonlight Murmurs" seemed to linger in the empty piano room. I had poured every ounce of my hope for our shared happiness into each measure of this piece. I'd planned to play it for him on our fifth anniversary, a surprise gift.

But now, it all felt like a pathetic delusion.

The small sandalwood box trembled in my hand before falling, its edge slicing the fingers that had failed to hold on.

I'd been humming the main melody, searching his heavy redwood desk in his study for my spare copy of the sheet music, when my fingers brushed against an unusually thick, hardcover book. It seemed to jut out slightly further than the others on the shelf.

Absentmindedly, I tried to push it back into place, but felt something behind it. A harder push, and the book toppled backward, revealing what had been hidden behind it—that sandalwood box.

My heart skipped a beat. This wasn't Adrien's style. He liked everything neat, orderly, visible. This hiding spot reeked of furtiveness.

Hesitating for only a second, a powerful sense of foreboding compelled me to reach out and take the box. It wasn't locked. The lid lifted easily.

Inside wasn't the sheet music I'd been looking for.

There were only two items: a well-worn leather-bound notebook, and an old, seemingly oft-handled wooden bead bracelet.

Why would he hide this?

A terrible premonition seized my heart. Trembling, I opened the diary.

Adrien's familiar handwriting filled the pages, but every word was alien to me.

"Kayla's playing that tedious piece again. Endlessly. It's giving me a headache. Does she really think I'd like it? Ridiculously naive. Only Olivia understands true music, the kind of passion that ignites the soul. Last night in the Z Suite, just her soft humming was enough to unravel me…"

The Z Suite? The hotel he'd stayed at last month for the conference in the neighboring city?

My breath hitched. My fingers, acting on their own, frantically turned the pages.

"First wedding anniversary. Kayla prepared dinner, candles… her gaze was suffocating. Made an excuse about work and slipped out. Room 1204 at the Y Hotel. Olivia was my real celebration…"

"The look of expectation in her eyes turns my stomach. Waiting for the perfect moment? Ha. With her, there will never be a perfect moment. All my perfection belongs to Olivia."

"Kayla is just the perfect backdrop, my promise to Olivia—a safe harbor. She must exist, so Olivia can bask in the sunlight without a care."

Backdrop? Safe harbor? Disgust?

It was like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head, freezing my blood solid. I staggered back, my back thudding heavily against the cold bookshelf.

Five years. A full five years. All the deep affection, consideration, and cherishing I thought we had—it was all a lie! I was just a prop, a pathetic shield used to cover up their affair! A pitiful screen built on lies!

Rage and humiliation erupted like a volcano in my chest! I wanted to scream! To smash everything!

My gaze snapped to the bead bracelet. Clutching it like a final lifeline, or perhaps seeking more proof this was all a nightmare, I grabbed it.

The beads slid through my palm. "X Hotel 815," then "Y Hotel 1204"—our wedding anniversary!

And—"The night before the proposal"!

The engraving on that bead was the sharpest knife, slicing through my last shred of delusion! So, the night before he got down on one knee for me, he had been in Olivia's bed!

I couldn't hold it in any longer. I rushed to the trash can in the corner and doubled over, retching violently, tears streaming uncontrollably. Not from sadness, but from ultimate revulsion, as if I'd swallowed something putrid and foul.

The movement I cherished, into which I'd poured all my love, was stored alongside these records of their sordid affair! My love, my marriage, my everything—in his eyes, it was all so wretched and laughable!

A strange, bone-chilling calm abruptly seized me after the violent retching and trembling. It was the dead silence that follows a heart utterly crushed.

I slowly straightened up, wiping the mess from my mouth and the tears from my face with my sleeve. My movements were terrifyingly calm.

I walked back to the desk, carefully placed the diary and bead chain back into the sandalwood box exactly as I found them, closed the lid, and pushed it back behind the heavy book on music theory.

Then, I took out my phone. My fingertips were icy, but steady as I dialed an encrypted number.

"Elliott." My voice was flat, devoid of emotion, like I was reading sheet music. "Project Phantom."

It was the code my brother and I had agreed upon. If I ever needed to escape, I would use it.

There was a moment of silence on the other end before Elliott's low, tense voice came through. "Kayla? What happened? The plan is for emergencies only…"

"Activate it now," I interrupted, my tone brooking no argument, each word like an icy key being struck. "I need to disappear. Forever. Now."

That painstakingly composed piano piece would never see its anniversary.