Chapter 4
Alice
The invisible chain dragged me through the pristine streets of Pendleton Base family housing.
'Going back to the crime scene, Nicolas? Feeling nostalgic?'
Mrs. Patterson's curtains twitched in the window next door. Within seconds, she was at her front door, her gray hair perfectly curled and her sympathy smile plastered on.
"Nicolas, honey, if you need anything..." she called out, her voice dripping with the kind of fake concern military wives perfected.
"I'm fine." Nicolas slammed the car door harder than necessary. "Just here to pack up her stuff."
'Her stuff,' I thought bitterly. 'Three years of marriage reduced to "stuff" you need to pack away.'
Mrs. Patterson's face fell at his cold tone, but she nodded and retreated back inside.
Nicolas fumbled with his keys at the front door, and for a split second, his military composure cracked. His hands were shaking.
When the door finally opened, the smell hit both of us—lavender.
My fucking lavender perfume still lingering in the air like a ghost of happiness.
Nicolas stood frozen in the doorway, taking a deep breath like he was trying to absorb whatever was left of me.
'Missing me already, asshole?'
The living room looked exactly as I'd left it—military-standard clean. Everything in its perfect place, just like Nicolas had trained me to keep it.
On the coffee table sat my military spouse handbook, covered in my desperate notes about "How to be the perfect military wife: Support your soldier, integrate into the community, put aside personal needs."
Nicolas picked it up, flipping through pages covered in my handwriting.
"Remember: his needs come first. Military wives are the backbone of our heroes," he read aloud, his voice mocking.
Then he laughed—a bitter, ugly sound.
"Perfect military wife... such a fucking joke."
'I tried so hard to be what you wanted. And you're laughing at it.'
The handbook had been my bible during those first few months of marriage. Every highlighted sentence, every margin note was evidence of how desperately I'd wanted to fit into his world.
How fucking naive I'd been.
(Flash Back)
One year ago, the same living room, but bathed in spring sunlight.
I was sitting on the couch in my favorite maternity dress, reading What to Expect When You're Expecting, my hand resting on my growing belly.
Nicolas had come home from base that day with actual flowers—something he never did—and the biggest smile I'd ever seen on his face.
"Our daughter will be proud to have a hero mom like you," he'd said, kissing my forehead as he knelt beside the couch.
"And a brave dad who overcame his trauma. We're going to be great parents."
We'd spent that entire evening picking out names. Nicolas had been so gentle, so loving.
"If it's a girl, Aurora," he'd suggested. "Because you gave me hope when I thought I was broken beyond repair."
'Great parents. Before you decided I was a killer who didn't deserve to procreate.'
Six months ago
Hospital room. Harsh fluorescent lights. Me lying in that terrible bed while a doctor explained why our baby was gone.
"Sometimes these things just happen. It's nobody's fault," the doctor had said gently.
Nicolas stood by the window with his back to me.
"Maybe it's for the best," he'd said, his voice flat and emotionless. "The baby dodged a bullet."
I'd stared at him in shock. "Nicolas... what did you just say?"
He'd turned around then, and for the first time, I saw something cold and foreign in his eyes.
'That was the moment you let the mask slip. And I was too broken to see it.'
(End Flash)
In the bedroom now, Nicolas stopped at my vanity table. Among my makeup and jewelry sat our pregnancy photos—the ones we'd taken at twenty weeks, when everything still seemed perfect.
He picked up one where I was glowing with happiness, my hands cradling my belly while Nicolas stood behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist.
For a long moment, he just stared at it.
"You looked so fucking happy," he whispered to the photo. "Was any of it real?"
'It was real for me. Every second of loving you was real.'
Then his expression twisted with rage.
"Lies! All fucking lies!" He tore the photo in half, then kept tearing until it was confetti in his hands.
But then—and this is what made my blood run cold—he carefully gathered every single piece and put them in his pocket.
'What the hell, Nicolas? You destroy it but can't let it go?'
Nicolas sat down at my desk and pulled out his phone. I watched him scroll through his contacts until he found one labeled "Colonel H."
My blood turned to ice.
The phone rang twice before a gruff, older male voice answered.
"Sir, it's done. Alice Crawford is dead."
"Good. That bitch finally paid for killing my daughter."
"Yes, sir. Justice has been served."
But Nicolas's voice sounded wrong—uncertain, like he was reading from a script he didn't quite believe.
"Any problems with the execution?" the Colonel asked.
"No, sir. Clean and efficient. She never saw it coming."
'Liar. I saw everything coming. I just couldn't stop it.'
"Outstanding, Nicolas. Sarah can finally rest in peace."
What caught me completely off guard was Nicholas's reaction—unlike the old man on the phone, he just sat there in dead silence.
As a psychologist, I'd learned to read micro-expressions, body language, the subtle tells that revealed what people were really feeling.
And what I saw in Nicolas right now wasn't satisfaction or relief.
It was confusion. Doubt.
The look of a man who'd completed a mission but couldn't figure out why he felt so fucking empty.
'What the hell is wrong with you, Nicolas? You got what you wanted—revenge for Sarah's death. So why do you look like you've lost everything that matters?'
The truth hit me like a sledgehammer: Nicolas wasn't just experiencing post-revenge syndrome.
He was starting to question whether he'd destroyed the right person.
And that terrified me more than my own murder ever had.