Chapter 13 - The Confrontation
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"I didn't know..." I choked out, tears streaming down my face into my ears. "Emily, please... I swear on my life, I didn't know you existed!"
Emily's dark eyes narrowed, her hand shaking slightly as she held the gun pressed against my skull. "That's what Ethan told me when he brought me home four years ago. He told me he loved me. He told me I was his whole world."
"He lied to me too!" I cried, fighting through the grogginess of the gas filling the room. "Look at me! Look at what they did to me! Margaret tried to kill me three days ago! She pushed me off the balcony!"
Emily let out a sharp, breathless laugh that sounded devoid of any human joy.
"Margaret didn't push you off the balcony, Claire," Emily whispered, leaning down until her icy skin brushed against my cheek. "Margaret was in the kitchen talking to the caterer when you fell."
My heart froze inside my plaster cage. "What?"
"I was standing in the garden three nights ago," Emily revealed, her voice dripping with venom. "I was hiding in the bushes, watching the house, preparing to kill Ethan. And I saw who pushed you."
"Who?" I gasped, my lungs burning.
"It wasn't Margaret," Emily said softly. "Ethan pushed you. Just like he pushed me four years ago."
The truth crashed over me like a tidal wave of ice water.
Ethan. My charming, attentive, handsome husband.
On the night of my fall, when I showed him the explicit text messages on his phone... he hadn't panicked. He had simply smiled his dark, hollow smile.
He had lured me out onto the balcony under the guise of talking privately, waited until my back was turned, and shoved me into the dark.
"He... he tried to kill me," I whispered, the final piece of the nightmare locking into place.
"He does it when he gets tired of us," Emily spat, her finger tightening on the trigger. "He finds a new target, takes out an insurance policy, and uses his mother to clean up the mess afterward. But you took my place, Claire. You slept in my bed. You wore my mother's pearls."
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"I am his victim too, Emily!" I screamed through my tears. "We are both his victims! Don't let him win!"
Emily paused, her eyes flickering with a sudden, unpredictable conflict as she looked down at my broken, plastered body.
