Chapter 4
October 25th.
Alex's patience had been completely worn thin. The escalating distrust between him and Vivian made him desperate to lock my assets firmly in his grasp, as his ultimate trump card and safety net.
Tonight, he came home carrying a document. Its cream-colored cover gleamed with the gold-stamped words Asset Holding Agreement.
He gave me the agreement across the coffee table, leaning in with a gentleness I'd never seen from him before. "Emily, take a look at this. Sign it, and you won't have to worry about anything anymore. I'll take care of everything." His eyes enveloped me like a net, trying to catch even the slightest change in my expression.
I picked up the agreement, the A4 paper feeling oddly heavy between my fingers. As I flipped through the pages, all the legalese and financial terms seemed to crawl across the paper like ants, making me dizzy. I acted hesitant and uneasy, my fingers absentmindedly twisting the edge of my silk nightgown.
"Is this... really okay?" I asked in a small voice, my eyes wide with both fear of the unknown and a need for his reassurance. "I'm still kind of scared... Maybe I should think twice?"
A hint of disappointment flickered in Alex's eyes, but he quickly covered it up with a flawless smile. "Of course, sweetheart. Take your time." He figured this was just the last bit of resistance before I finally gave in.
Night had fallen.
Lying in bed, I listened to his steady breathing beside me, knowing he was fast asleep. I waited quietly until the clock on the wall pointed to three in the morning. It's the time when people are in their deepest sleep.
Barefoot, I slipped out of bed like a cat, moving silently into his study. I didn't turn on the light. Only the moonlight seeped through the blinds, casting stripes of light and shadow across the floor.
In the corner of the study stood the safe he always kept off-limits to me.
I already knew the code. Last month, I'd used the dead air conditioner remote as a pretext to ask him for help. The pinhole camera hidden in the ceiling smoke detector had caught every detail of his fingers punching in the code.
02-28-14-36
The sound of the dial spinning echoed through the silent room, each click felt like a hammer striking my heart. With the final soft click, the heavy door swung open.
There were no gold bars or bundles of cash like I'd imagined. Just a brown folder sitting there.
My fingertips were icy as I pulled out the folder, opening it by the dim glow of my phone screen.
For a moment, my breath froze.
Inside the folder, there were two agreements. The first was the Asset Holding Agreement, the one he'd handed me earlier tonight.
The second was titled Partnership & Profit Sharing Agreement. Alex as the first party, Vivian as the second. The terms spelled out that after Alex managed to secure all my assets, Vivian would get thirty percent. Their signatures sprawled across the bottom, bold and dramatic.
My gaze was so intense that it felt like I could burn right through the paper. But when I pulled out the last document, my blood turned to ice in an instant.
It was a stamped medical diagnosis from the City Mental Health Institute. My name was right there. The diagnosis read: severe bipolar disorder, with intermittent episodes of psychosis.
A cold chill shot up my spine, and my stomach clenched so hard, it felt like I'd swallowed a block of ice. So it wasn't just my money they wanted. They'd already prepared everything to make me look unreliable, even to make me vanish without a trace.
They wanted me dead.
I snapped photos of all the documents with my phone, carefully put everything back exactly as it was, and shut the safe. Back in the bedroom, I opened the nightstand drawer and took out the black diary.
On the newest page, I picked up a red ink pen and carefully wrote each word, stroke by stroke, it's time to end it.