Chapter Thirteen
The house is too quiet.
Not peaceful—never peaceful—but the kind of silence that makes the walls feel like they’re listening. Catherine stands in the doorway of the home office, fingers trembling on the light switch before she decides against it.
Darkness feels safer. Less real.
Caleb’s laptop sits on the desk, lid half-open as though he left in a hurry. Or as though he didn’t care if she found anything at all.
Maybe he thought she wouldn’t dare.
Maybe he still doesn’t know what she’s become.
Catherine slips into the chair, the leather cold beneath her. Her pulse hammers as she opens the laptop, expecting passwords, locks, digital traps—something.
But no.
The screen wakes instantly, as if welcoming her.
Or taunting her.
His desktop is unnervingly clean. Empty folders, business spreadsheets, tax files neatly labeled. Too neat. Too curated.
She clicks into a folder titled “Q4 Reports.”
It’s empty.
She clicks “2022 Projects.”
Empty.
Then she sees it—slightly grayed out, hidden behind a string of numbers and dots.
A locked folder.
She clicks. It asks for a password.
Her throat tightens.
She tries the obvious first—his birthday. Their anniversary. The name of that stupid luxury watch he loves.
Nothing.
Then she hesitates… and types her own name.
The folder unlocks instantly.
Her blood runs cold.
Inside are subfolders, dozens of them—names, dates, addresses.
And then: “MEDICAL.”
Catherine clicks, breath catching.
The first document is a PDF—Caleb’s medical report from two years ago. Except the date is wrong. The header is mismatched. And the doctor’s signature—
Fake.
She scrolls faster, heart racing.
Another report.
HIV: detected.
Chlamydia: positive.
Gonorrhea: positive.
All dated long before her infection.
Her vision blurs. The room tilts.
Caleb knew.
He knew, and he never told her. Worse—he hid it. Lied about it. Slept beside her. Touched her. Held her. All while these files sat here, waiting for her to bleed on the inside.
A sob claws into her throat, but she swallows it down.
She clicks the next folder.
“PERSONAL.”
Photos load instantly—Caleb with women she doesn’t recognize. Hotels she’s never been to. His hands on them, their mouths on his neck, his smile easy and unburdened.
Each photo is time-stamped.
Some overlap the nights he told her he worked late. Some overlap the mornings he kissed her forehead and said he loved her.
Her stomach twists violently.
But it’s the video that destroys her.
A thumbnail—Caleb in a hotel room, shirt open, holding the camera himself. A woman giggles in the background.
He says something to the camera. She turns the volume up.
“She’ll never leave. She’s too loyal. Too scared.”
Catherine’s breath stops.
He laughs, low and cruel. “Besides… she already has what I have.”
Her hand flies to her mouth.
She feels the scream rising, sharp and choking, but it can’t escape. She’s frozen—paralyzed—held hostage by the horror of finally knowing the truth.
Caleb didn’t just betray her.
He didn’t just cheat.
He didn’t even just lie.
He infected her. Deliberately. Carelessly. Maliciously.
He knew she would trust him.
He weaponized that trust.
He let her body become collateral damage.
Catherine slams the laptop shut. The sound crashes through the quiet house, and for a moment she thinks it might split her open too.
Her chest heaves, breath broken, vision shaking.
She grips the edge of the desk until her knuckles turn bone white.
Because now she understands the part of the story no one ever warns you about:
The deepest cuts don’t come from knives.
They come from the hands you used to fall asleep holding.