Chapter 3 Confession Recording Unleashes the Truth

Chapter 3: Confession Recording Unleashes the Truth

The phone burns like a live coal in my palm. Claire's final message plays on loop in my mind, each word unlocking fragments of memory like puzzle pieces snapping into place. I have a sister—had a sister. The childhood I remember in flashes: matching dresses at birthday parties, whispered secrets after bedtime, the subtle ways we distinguished ourselves to a world that constantly confused us.

But where had she been all these years? And why didn't I remember her until now?

I hide the phone beneath the mattress when I hear Ward's approach. The door swings open, and there he stands, his smile practiced and hollow.

"How are you feeling today?" His voice drips with concern that doesn't reach his eyes. "Dr. Mercer says you should be cleared for the charity gala next week."

"Better," I lie, forcing a smile. "The headaches are almost gone."

"Excellent." He places a garment bag on the bed. "I had this made for you. Something special for the evening."

Inside is a silver gown that catches the light like mercury. Beautiful and toxic.

"It's lovely," I say, running my fingers over the fabric. "Thank you."

Ward watches me with that peculiar intensity of his, as if searching for someone else behind my eyes. "You wore something similar when we first met. Do you remember?"

I don't. But I nod anyway, building trust through false memories. "Of course. How could I forget?"

His smile widens, satisfied. "Rest now. I'll be in my study if you need me."

The moment the door clicks shut, I retrieve Claire's phone and begin the methodical search for answers. The device is largely empty—wiped clean except for that single message and a handful of photos. Pictures of me—or rather, of us. Two identical women, subtle differences only visible to those who knew where to look. Claire's smile, more guarded. My eyes, slightly wider set. In most images, we're younger—college age—carefree in a way that feels like a lifetime ago.

But it's the calendar that gives me the key. Weekly appointments marked only as "W.S."—Ward Stevens. Going back years before my supposed relationship with him began.

Claire knew him first. Claire was with him first.

I wait until midnight, when Ward's evening ritual begins. Every night at precisely 12:15, he disappears into his private wing for exactly forty-seven minutes. The security detail changes shifts at 12:30, leaving a fifteen-minute window of reduced surveillance.

Tonight, I follow him.

The passage between our bedroom and his private quarters is a blind spot in the camera network—I'd mapped it meticulously over weeks of observation. I slip through shadows, barefoot to muffle my steps, heart hammering against my ribs.

His door is cracked open, a sliver of amber light spilling into the hallway. Inside, Ward's voice rises and falls in a cadence I've never heard from him—raw, unfiltered emotion.

"—same mistake every time." His words are slurred slightly. Bourbon, if I had to guess. "I look at her, and for a moment, it's you I see."

I peer through the gap. Ward sits before an ornate desk, back to the door, speaking to a framed photograph I can't quite glimpse.

"The doctors say her memory might never fully return. Part of me hopes it doesn't." A bitter laugh. "What kind of monster does that make me? Wanting her to forget so I can pretend?"

He takes another drink, shoulders slumping. "I should have loved you, Claire. You were the one who saw me, really saw me. But every time I close my eyes, it's her face I see. It's always been her."

The glass in my mind shatters.

Ward is in love with me—not Claire. He was obsessed with me first, and somehow Claire got caught in between us.

"I'm sorry," he whispers to the photograph. "I'm so fucking sorry."

I shift my weight, and the floorboard beneath me creaks. Ward goes still.

"Security," he calls out, voice instantly composed.

I retreat swiftly, making it back to our bedroom seconds before the guard passes. As I slip beneath the covers, heart pounding, one thought crystallizes with perfect clarity: I need evidence.

The next morning, I place a small recording device—stolen from Ward's desk drawer—beneath his private desk before breakfast. A gamble, but necessary.

"You seem distracted," Ward comments as I pick at my toast. "Headaches again?"

"Just thinking about the gala," I say. "I want everything to be perfect."

His expression softens into something almost genuine. "It will be. The board is eager to see you back in action. Stevens Pharmaceuticals hasn't been the same without its power couple."

The company. Of course. I was a rival executive before the "accident"—pieces of my professional life flash back in vivid detail. The hostile takeover attempt. The stolen research. The threats.

"I've been thinking," I say carefully, "about getting back to work. Maybe reviewing some of our recent projects?"

Ward's smile tightens. "All in good time, darling. Recovery first."

That night, I retrieve the recording device while Ward showers. Hours of silence, interrupted by his nightly confessional:

"—should never have started this. But seeing her at that conference, so brilliant, so alive... I couldn't help myself. Claire was a means to an end. A way to get closer. But then she found out, threatened to tell Whitney everything. I never meant for the accident to—"

The recording cuts off abruptly. My blood freezes in my veins. What accident? Was he talking about my car crash, or something that happened to Claire?

The gala arrives with perfect dramatic timing. The elite of the pharmaceutical world gathered in one place—board members, investors, and most importantly, witnesses. I dress in Ward's silver gown, apply my makeup with surgical precision, and hide the recording device in my clutch.

"You look stunning," Ward says as we enter the ballroom, his hand possessive on the small of my back. "Like a dream."

"Whose dream?" I ask softly. "Yours or mine?"

Something dangerous flickers in his eyes, but we're surrounded by people now, his carefully cultivated public image at stake.

"Mrs. Stevens!" An elderly board member approaches. "What a miracle to have you back with us. We were all so worried after your accident."

"Thank you, Mr. Harrington." I smile warmly. "It's been quite the journey of... discovery."

Ward's fingers dig into my waist. Warning.

I wait until his speech begins—a self-congratulatory monologue about resilience and partnership—before making my move. While all eyes are on him, I connect the recording device to the venue's sound system, a trick I apparently learned during my corporate espionage days.

"And none of this would be possible without my brilliant wife," Ward concludes, raising his glass. "To Whitney Stevens, the woman who changed everything."

I stand, matching his toast. "To truth," I counter. "And consequences."

Then I press play.

Ward's voice fills the ballroom, intimate and broken: "I should have loved you, Claire. You were the one who saw me, really saw me. But every time I close my eyes, it's her face I see. It's always been her."

The crowd falls silent. Ward's face drains of color.

"My husband has been confessing to a photograph every night," I announce, my voice steady. "Would you like to know whose picture he's been talking to?"

I pull out my phone, display the image I'd found hidden in his desk—a younger me at a conference, unaware of being photographed.

"The woman in the photo," I say, making eye contact with each board member, "is me. Not my sister Claire, whom he claims to have loved. Me."

Whispers ripple through the crowd. Ward's mask of composure cracks.

"Whitney," he warns, striding toward me.

"Claire died three years ago, didn't she, Ward? Right before our supposed whirlwind romance began."

He reaches me, grabs my arm with bruising force, his smile never faltering for the watching crowd. "That's enough," he hisses through clenched teeth.

"No," I say loudly. "It's not nearly enough."

With a savage motion, Ward snatches my clutch, upending it on a nearby table. The recording device clatters out, along with Claire's phone—and something else. A folded paper I've never seen before.

He seizes it, unfolding it with trembling hands. His face contorts with an emotion I can't name as he reads whatever is written there. Then, with a roar of pure rage, he slams his fist into the glass picture frame on the table, shattering it.

Blood streams from his knuckles as he stares at the paper, now stained crimson. "Where did you get this?" he demands, voice barely human.

I step forward and snatch the bloodied page from his grasp. The handwriting is Claire's, identical to her diary:

"Whitney, if you're reading this, I'm gone. Ward isn't who you think he is. He came to me first, trying to get to you. I played along, thinking I could protect you. I was wrong. The accident wasn't an accident. Don't trust his love. It's poison. Live, little sister. Live for both of us. —Claire"

The room spins around me. Little sister. By minutes, perhaps, but the identity I'd carried all my life—the confident twin, the leader—was a fiction.

"You knew," I whisper. "You knew she was trying to warn me, and you let her die."

Ward's face is a battlefield of emotions—grief, rage, desperation. "She chose to leave," he says hoarsely. "I gave her everything—"

"Except the truth," I cut in. "That it was always me you wanted."

Security guards approach cautiously, drawn by the commotion. I back away from Ward, clutch Claire's final message to my chest.

"Mrs. Stevens?" One of them touches my elbow. "Your car is ready whenever you wish to leave."

I nod, turning toward the exit. Freedom just steps away.

"Stop her," Ward commands, his voice deadly calm. "My wife is unwell. She's not leaving."

The guards hesitate, looking between us.

"I'm perfectly well," I say firmly. "And I'm leaving."

I make it three steps before I'm surrounded, not by hotel security, but by Ward's private detail, materializing from the crowd like shadows given form.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the lead guard says without a trace of remorse. "Mr. Stevens has instructed that you cannot leave the premises."

Ward approaches, wiping blood from his hand with a white handkerchief that blooms red like poppies.

"Take my wife to the car," he instructs, every inch the concerned husband. "She needs her medication."

As they escort me out, Ward's whisper follows like a curse: "Did you really think I wouldn't have contingency plans?"

The last thing I see is the bloodstained letter clutched in his fist, Claire's final warning dripping onto the marble floor.