Chapter 4 - The Apartment
Michael began renting the second apartment eight months earlier.
He told Claire the company had assigned him a temporary office near downtown.
Some nights, he claimed deadlines forced him to sleep there.
Claire believed him.
She was exhausted from the pregnancy and grateful that he seemed focused on work.
The apartment was not an office.
It was where Michael built a second life.
He kept photographs of Vanessa there.
He hosted dinners.
He stored wedding-planning folders inside a locked desk.
He even created a new social media account that blocked Claire and everyone connected to her family.
His coworkers thought he and Claire had separated.
Vanessa’s friends thought his divorce was nearly complete.
Michael survived by keeping every group apart.
The wedding was supposed to make the lie permanent.
Once he married Vanessa publicly, he planned to disappear from Claire’s home before the baby arrived.
But he needed money first.
Claire controlled most of the couple’s savings because Michael had accumulated debts.
The joint account was the only fund he could reach without immediately triggering questions.
He believed ten thousand dollars would disappear inside the cost of childbirth.
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He underestimated Claire.
And he underestimated the bank alerts she had activated after his last financial mistake.
