Have you ever wondered if the person sharing the bed with you every night—the one you've been passionately tangled with—isn't actually who you married? On our tenth wedding anniversary, Nathan pressed me against the floor-to-ceiling windows. His burning lips traced my collarbone, his calloused hands gentle yet commanding as they stole the breath from my lungs. "Happy tenth anniversary, baby." But my body wouldn't stop trembling, my stomach turning inside out. Because just one hour ago, I had discovered something: the back of his neck bore no trace of Nathan Jarvis's signature maroon birthmark. The night was ink-black, the city's brilliant neon lights glittering beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. I could feel the warmth of his palms through the thin silk of my nightgown, searing into my waist. They were calloused hands—rough, marked by years of writing and working out. But the real Nathan—that privileged rich man who'd never done a day of physical labor in his life, who could barely peel an apple without cutting himself—how could he have hands like these? "Elena, you're shaking?" He paused, pulling back half an inch, his dark eyes locking onto me through the dim light. I bit down hard on my lower lip, forcing back the scream clawing its way up my throat. "I'm fine. The AC is too cold." I forced a smile, wrapped my arms around his neck, and buried my face against his chest—so he couldn't see the terror in my eyes. His heartbeat was strong and steady. This body—I had held it for three thousand six hundred and fifty nights, knew it so well I could trace every inch with my eyes closed. But now my mind kept pulling me back to an hour ago, when I'd been tidying his discarded suit and found something in the most hidden inner pocket: a silver pendant—crescent-shaped, its edges crusted with dried dark-brown blood. That pendant had been around Nathan's neck the night of his car accident, ten years ago. When the police cleared the scene, it had vanished. Everyone assumed it had been destroyed in the explosion. "Let me turn the temperature up then." He laughed softly, pressed a kiss to the top of my head, and turned to grab the remote. The moment he turned away, I caught the light streaming through the windows and stared—hard—at the back of his neck. Smooth. Bare. Nothing. The real Nathan Jarvis had a maroon birthmark on the back of his neck, one he'd been born with. I had traced it with my fingertips countless times after we made love. He'd always laugh and pull away, saying that spot was too sensitive. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the bathroom mirror: eyes red, lips trembling. I looked away fast. That night was the longest of my life. I moved like a hollow puppet, going through every expected motion. But the rational part of me kept cycling through one suffocating thought: If he isn't Nathan Jarvis, then who is he? And more importantly—where is my Nathan?
The next morning, his car rolled out through the estate's gate. I didn't fall apart. I went straight to the study. On the top shelf of Nathan's bookcase sat a combination lockbox holding all of his college-era belongings. After the accident, he'd never opened it again. He said he didn't want to force memories that wouldn't come back. I tried Nathan's birthday: wrong code. I tried my birthday: wrong code. I stopped. I thought back to the day he proposed, ten years ago: "Elena, the day I met you was the day my life began again." That day was September 12th. With trembling fingers, I pressed 0912. Beep— The lockbox opened. Inside were several journals, some yellowed photographs, and a college yearbook. The real Nathan had beautiful handwriting—precise and elegant, carrying the quiet confidence of someone who lived in his own mind. I pulled out the journals and the yearbook and went through them page by page. The last page of the yearbook held a photo. Nathan and another guy, arms thrown around each other's shoulders, grinning easily. The other guy looked about seventy percent like Nathan—but his eyes were dark and brooding, nothing like Nathan's warmth. My finger stopped on that face. I had seen those eyes somewhere before. I flipped the photo over. Two lines of writing on the back. The top line, in Nathan's handwriting: "My best brother, Kevin Prescott." The bottom line, scrawled in a rushed, messy hand: "If something happens to me, find Andrew Nelson." Andrew Nelson. That name hit me like a bolt of lightning. Andrew, now one of the top lawyers in the city, was Nathan's college roommate. After the accident, "Nathan" had gradually pulled away from him, citing personality differences — something I hadn't thought much of at the time, but which now sent a chill down my spine. Why would the real Nathan leave behind those words in advance? "If something happens to me" — he had already sensed something, before the accident even happened. I pulled out my backup phone and dialed the number for Andrew Nelson's law firm. "Hello, I'm Elena Jarvis. Nathan Jarvis's wife." There was a full thirty seconds of silence on the other end. I almost thought he was going to hang up. "Mrs. Jarvis, I'm listening." His voice was low and calm. "Andrew, there's something I need to tell you in person. About Nathan." "Three o'clock this afternoon. The abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. Don't drive your own car. Don't bring any device with GPS tracking." He didn't ask what I'd found. He didn't ask why I was being so careful. It was as if he had been waiting for this call for a very long time.
The abandoned factory on the outskirts of town was surrounded by overgrown weeds. The air smelled of motor oil and rust. Andrew was standing beside a rusted oil drum in a black trench coat, a half-burned cigarette between his fingers. When he saw me approaching, he crushed it out. "Mrs. Jarvis, you're sharper than I expected." "You knew?" My voice trembled. "I've suspected for ten years." He didn't turn to look at me, his gaze fixed on the grey sky in the distance. "A week before the accident, ten years ago, Nathan came to me. He said Kevin Prescott was obsessively impersonating him — wearing the same clothes, using the same cologne, copying the way he walked, the way he talked. Everything." He paused. "I told him to relax. Said it was probably just a coincidence. A week later, the accident happened. When the man who woke up in that hospital looked at me with those unfamiliar eyes, I knew. He wasn't Nathan." I handed him the pendant and the photo. Andrew stared at the pendant, his fingers tightening around it. He didn't say a word. "He kept it," I said. "Why?" Andrew slowly shook his head. There was a flicker of confusion in his expression — the kind he didn't even seem aware of. "That's his biggest mistake. And the one thing I've never been able to figure out." He handed the pendant back to me, his voice returning to its usual calm. "Mrs. Jarvis, we can't go to the police yet. Kevin Prescott has control over the entire Jarvis Group. Without ironclad evidence, making a move now will only tip him off. You need to keep playing the devoted wife. Stay close to him. Find the proof from back then." "Can you do that?" I closed my eyes. I thought about last night. About those calloused hands. "Yes." I opened my eyes. "But you haven't answered one of my questions." "What question?" I looked at him. "Nathan — is he alive or dead?" Andrew's expression faltered for just a fraction of a second. Less than a second. But I caught it. "I don't know," he said. I held his gaze and said nothing more.
Back in that gilded cage of a mansion, I began the most grueling — and most nauseating — performance of my life. Kevin Prescott was a remarkably sharp and suspicious man. Ten years of living as Nathan Jarvis without a single slip — that took the kind of near-obsessive caution and need for control that bordered on pathological. I had to bury every ounce of hatred, fear, and disgust deep inside me, and meet him with the most perfect smile and the sweetest voice I could manage. "Honey, you're home." That evening, when Kevin pushed open the front door, I was already there to greet him — wearing his favorite silk slip, holding a warm bowl of soup I'd spent the afternoon making, a bright smile fixed on my face. His gaze lingered on me for a few seconds. It was the kind of look that searched and dissected, like he was trying to see straight through me. My heart leapt into my throat, but I kept my smile perfectly in place. "Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?" I asked, touching my cheek with a playful pout. He smiled suddenly. The suspicion in his eyes receded like a tide, replaced by that familiar, hollow tenderness. "No. I just think my wife looks especially beautiful tonight." He reached out and wrapped an arm around my waist, pressing a kiss to my forehead. I swallowed back the nausea rising in my stomach and held the bowl out to him. "Drink it while it's hot." In the days that followed, I was like a dancer on a razor's edge — moving carefully, doing everything I could to keep this fragile, false peace intact. During the day, I play the role of the wife of the Jarvis Group's CEO, accompanying him to social events, putting on a show of the loving couple we'd supposedly been for ten years. At night, once he fell asleep, I'd slip into the bathroom and use the encrypted phone Andrew had given me to exchange messages with him. Andrew was quietly digging through the files from the car accident ten years ago, searching for overlooked clues. Meanwhile, I was hunting obsessively through Kevin's daily life for any crack in his armor. I started deliberately testing the real Nathan's weak spots. The real Nathan had a severe allergy to mangoes — even touching one would break him out in hives. When Kevin first "woke up," he'd refused to go near mangoes, careful not to blow his cover. But as time passed, his guard seemed to have slipped. On the weekend, I cooked myself and put together a full spread, including a mango dessert. "Honey, try this — I just learned how to make it." I cut a small piece and held it out to him. Kevin looked at the golden-yellow dessert, and a slight frown crossed his face. "Elena, did you forget? I'm allergic to mango." His voice carried a faint note of reproach. I covered my mouth in exaggerated surprise. "Oh no, how did I forget that! I'm so sorry, my memory has been terrible lately. But…" I paused, locking my eyes on his, the ghost of a cold smile playing at the corner of my lips. "But honey, I could've sworn I saw you eating a piece of dried mango in the study the other day while you were going through documents. I actually thought maybe the accident changed your body somehow, and the allergy just went away." The air seemed to freeze. The expression on Kevin Prescott's face went rigid. His pupils contracted sharply, and something ice-cold and terrifying flashed through those eyes that usually looked so warm. He was studying me. Calculating whether what I'd just said was an innocent slip — or a deliberate test. My palms were drenched in cold sweat, but I held his gaze without flinching, keeping my expression wide-eyed and confused. "Is that so?" After a long silence, he suddenly laughed. The sound of it echoed through the empty dining room in a way that made my skin crawl. "I must have been so absorbed in those documents that I wasn't paying attention to what I was eating. Though, allergies are funny things — maybe you're right. Maybe my body really did change." He picked up the plate of dessert, grabbed a spoon, scooped up a large bite, and put it in his mouth without a moment's hesitation. "It's good." He swallowed and smiled at me. I watched him finish every last bit of that mango dessert, and I felt no triumph at all — only a bone-deep chill. He was terrifying. To cover his tracks, he was willing to risk an "allergic reaction" just to keep the act going perfectly. He had already figured out I was testing him. From that day on, I could clearly feel Kevin's surveillance ratcheting up. My car was bugged. My phone was showing unexplained data usage. Even the route I took every day to buy groceries was being tracked by someone in the shadows. I was like prey caught in a spider's web — the more I struggled, the tighter it pulled. But I couldn't stop. I told Andrew about Kevin eating the mango. "He's sending you a warning." Andrew's voice sounded unusually heavy through the encrypted phone. "Elena, you're taking too many risks. Kevin is the kind of person who will do absolutely anything to protect what he has. You need to be more careful." "I know." I spoke through clenched teeth, hatred burning in my eyes. "But I have to push him until he slips up. Andrew — that woman who's been playing Nathan's mother, Morgan Palmer. What have you found out about her?" The real Nathan's parents had died when he was young. He'd only had a distant aunt. After the accident, Kevin had brought this woman in and introduced her to the world as Nathan's adoptive mother, claiming he was letting her live out her remaining years in comfort. But both Andrew and I suspected that Morgan Palmer wasn't who she claimed to be at all — she was Kevin's accomplice. "I found it." Andrew's voice carried a hint of excitement. "This Morgan Palmer is no distant aunt. Her real identity is the cousin of Kevin Prescott's biological mother. Ten years ago, she racked up massive gambling debts, and Kevin paid off every last cent — on one condition: that she play along with his little act." I let out a cold laugh. Birds of a feather. "Next month is Morgan Palmer's sixtieth birthday, and Kevin is throwing her a huge party at The Jarvis Manor." A sharp gleam flickered in my eyes. "That will be our perfect chance to tear off their masks."
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