Chapter 3
"He's getting desperate," Emmy whispered, her fingers trembling around the coffee mug as we sat in a quiet corner of a café far from her office. "Last week when I suggested we should just come clean about us, he grabbed my wrist so hard it bruised." She pushed up her sleeve to reveal the yellowing marks on her skin.
I felt a chill run through me that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. The Davis I thought I knew would never hurt a woman. But then again, the Davis I thought I knew wouldn't be sleeping with five of them behind my back.
"Has he threatened you explicitly?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.
Emmy nodded, tears welling in her eyes. "He said if I ever tried to contact you or expose our relationship, he'd make me regret it. That no one would believe me anyway because he has..." She paused, swallowing hard. "Because he has 'taken precautions.'"
My mind raced with the implications. Davis wasn't just a cheater; he was dangerous. And if he was threatening Emmy, what might he do when he discovered I knew everything?
"Tell me about the others," I said, sliding my phone across the table with the notes app open. "Everything you know."
Emmy wiped her tears with a napkin and began typing. Names, details, fragments she'd pieced together from Davis's careless comments and glimpses of his phone. When she finished, I had the beginnings of a map to Davis's elaborate web of deception.
Back at Taylor's apartment, we expanded that map into a full dossier on each woman. Lisa Chen, an investment banker who believed Davis was her exclusive partner for over a year. Maria Delgado, a real estate agent who was six months pregnant with what she thought was their miracle baby. Jennifer Wilson, an interior designer also pregnant and planning a future with my husband. And finally, Rebecca Taylor, a single mother who saw Davis as her child's future stepfather.
"Two pregnancies," I whispered, the words like acid on my tongue. We'd been trying for a baby for two years. Davis had claimed he was just as disappointed as I was each month when my period arrived. Meanwhile, he'd managed to impregnate two of his mistresses.
Taylor's hand covered mine, warm and steady. "Samara, we need to call the police. The financial fraud alone—"
"No," I cut him off. "Not yet. If we go to the police now, he'll deny everything, hide the evidence, and twist it to make me look like the jealous, unstable wife." I pulled up Davis's text messages from that morning, all loving concern about my business trip. "We need to catch him in something he can't talk his way out of."
Over the next three days, we built profiles on each woman. I used financial records and Davis's location history to establish patterns of visits. Taylor hacked into Davis's email accounts, revealing separate conversations with each woman, each containing the same hollow promises, the same manipulations. Two of the women had received identical "unique" jewelry pieces. All had been promised exclusive devotion.
"He can't keep juggling all of them forever," Taylor said as we pinned timeline notes to his living room wall. "The pregnancies alone will force his hand."
"Unless he eliminates the problem," I replied quietly, thinking of Emmy's bruises. "What if he decides one of them is too great a risk?"
The idea came to me that night as I lay awake in Taylor's spare bedroom. By morning, I had mapped out every detail. When I explained it to Taylor over breakfast, his face paled.
"That's insanely dangerous, Samara. If anything goes wrong—"
"It won't," I insisted. "Emmy agrees it's the only way to expose him completely. She's terrified of what he might do next."
Taylor ran his hands through his hair, pacing the kitchen. "We're talking about faking a suicide attempt, Samara! With safety equipment that could fail!"
"Industrial-grade safety nets, crash pads, and a professional stunt coordinator I've already contacted," I countered. "Emmy will never be in actual danger."
"And if Davis doesn't take the bait? If he doesn't show his true colors?"
I looked down at Emmy's bruise photos on my phone. "He will. Men like Davis always believe they're invincible until they're cornered. Then their true nature emerges." I met Taylor's worried gaze. "I'm going to corner him, Taylor. And when he shows the world who he really is, I'll be ready."
You may also like
