My husband’s mistress shoved me down the stairs while I was eight months pregnant. When he came running, she cried, “She slipped”—but I whispered four words that drained the color from her face.

The lawyer Mia called was named Elena Marquez.

She was in her late forties, sharp as a razor, with a scar across her left eyebrow and a reputation for eating cheating husbands for breakfast.

She showed up at my hospital room at nine the next morning, briefcase in hand, and didn’t waste a single second on small talk.

“Tell me everything,” she said, pulling a chair up to the bed. “From the first time you suspected he was cheating to the second you hit the bottom of those stairs. Don’t leave anything out. Even if it makes you look bad. Even if it makes him look good. I need all of it.”

I told her.

Everything.

The late nights at the office.

The strange charges on the credit card.

The way Vanessa had showed up at our house three months earlier, “just needing a place to stay for a week” after her lease fell through.

Daniel had said she was family.

That she’d been engaged to his little brother, Ethan, who’d died in a garage fire two years before.

That he owed it to Ethan to take care of her.

I’d been hesitant, but I’d said yes.

I’d felt sorry for her.

Stupid.

So stupid.

I told Elena about catching them kissing in the hallway.

About Vanessa pushing me.

About the recording.

The fire.

Daniel calling her from the hospital.

The flowers.

Mia slapping him.

Elena took notes the whole time, her pen flying across the page.

When I finished, she closed her notebook.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s the problem. The security camera is gone. Vanessa ripped it out. The only witness to the push is you and her. Daniel is saying he didn’t see anything. Without footage, it’s he said she said. The restraining order against Vanessa we can get—no judge is going to let a woman who admitted to being your husband’s mistress anywhere near you and a newborn. But the attempted murder charge? That’s going to be an uphill battle. And the divorce? He’s going to fight for fifty percent of everything. Including custody.”

My stomach dropped.

“He can’t take her,” I said. “He can’t take Lila.”

“He can try,” Elena said. “He’s going to paint you as unstable. Hormonal from the pregnancy. Overemotional. He’ll say you made the whole thing up to punish him for cheating. Juries eat that shit up. Especially when the husband is a rich, successful contractor with a clean record and the wife is a stay-at-home mom who just had a baby.”

I looked at Mia.

She was staring at Elena, her face tight.

“So what do we do?” Mia said.

“We find proof,” Elena said. “Proof that Vanessa is dangerous. Proof that Daniel knew she was dangerous and let her stay in your house anyway. Proof of that fire she’s being blackmailed over. If we can tie her to a violent crime in the past, the push becomes a pattern. And Daniel’s choice to keep her around becomes negligence. That’s how we win full custody. That’s how we take every penny he has. That’s how we put Vanessa in jail where she belongs.”

She stood up and slung her briefcase over her shoulder.

“I’ll file the restraining order and the divorce papers today. In the meantime, if either of them contacts you, don’t answer. Forward everything to me. And if Daniel shows up at the hospital again, call security. Don’t talk to him. Don’t even look at him. Got it?”

“Got it,” Mia and I said in unison.

Elena left.

Mia went down to the cafeteria to get me some lunch.

I was alone with Lila, watching her sleep, when my phone rang.

An unknown number.

I almost didn’t answer.

Then I thought of the recording.

The man’s voice.

I swiped to accept.

“Hello?” I said.

“Rachel Carter?” the man said.

It was him.

The same rough voice from Daniel’s phone.

“Who is this?” I said, my hand tightening around the phone.

“Name’s Cole,” he said. “I’m the guy who left that message on your husband’s phone. We need to talk.”

My heart started hammering.

“About what?”

“About Vanessa,” he said. “About the fire that killed Ethan Carter. About the fact that she didn’t just shove you down a flight of stairs. She’s a murderer. And I can prove it.”

I sat up straight, wincing at the pull in my incision.

“Why are you calling me?” I said. “Why not the police?”

“Because the police didn’t listen to me two years ago,” he said. “Vanessa has money. She has friends in high places. She told them I was a disgruntled ex-boyfriend who was stalking her. They wrote me off. But your husband? He’s got pull too. If he gets his hands on what I have, he’ll bury it to protect her. You’re the only one who wants the truth bad enough to use it.”

“What do you have?” I said.

“Texts,” he said. “Photos. Witness statements. Proof that Vanessa and Ethan were fighting the night he died. Proof that he found out she was embezzling three hundred grand from the family construction business. That she knocked him out, locked him in the garage, and set the place on fire. Made it look like he fell asleep with a lit cigarette. Everyone bought it. Everyone except me.”

I took a shaky breath.

Three hundred grand.

Murder.

And Daniel had let this woman live in our house.

Sleep in our guest room.

Hold my hand at my baby shower.

“Where are you?” I said.

“Diner on Clark,” he said. “The twenty-four hour one with the neon sign out front. Booth seven in the back. I’ll be there for the next hour. Come alone. If you bring your sister, if you bring a cop, if you so much as text someone where you’re going, I’m gone. And you’ll never get the proof you need to put that bitch away. Do we have a deal?”

I looked at Lila.

She was sleeping peacefully, unaware that her entire world was falling apart around her.

I thought of Vanessa standing at the top of the stairs.

I thought of Daniel calling her from the hospital.

I thought of what Elena had said.

We need proof.

“Deal,” I said.

I hung up.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed.

My incision screamed in protest.

I stood up, leaning on the IV pole for support, and grabbed my clothes from the closet.

Sweatpants.