At our anniversary dinner, my husband raised his glass solemnly. I followed, but caught something unusual—a subtle flick of his fingers as he slipped something into my drink. A chill crept through me. I wasn’t going to take a chance.
While no one was looking, I carefully switched my glass with the one in front of his sister.
Ten minutes later, we toasted. The moment she took a sip, she clutched her stomach and screamed. Chaos broke out. My husband turned pale as a ghost.
I didn’t move. I just watched him. My heart screamed: What were you planning, my love?
They rushed his sister to the hospital. I kept my expression neutral, though my insides were shaking. When he stepped outside to make a call, I followed silently.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered on the phone. “She wasn’t supposed to drink it. I definitely switched the glasses!”
My blood ran cold. I hadn’t imagined it. He had meant to poison me.
I returned to the table, numb. I breathed slowly, keeping my face composed. One question throbbed in my mind: Why? After all these years?
Later that night, he approached me.
And I knew then—everything had changed. But most importantly: I was alive. And the truth would come.
The next morning, I visited the hospital. His sister was conscious but pale. The doctor said it was a severe poisoning. “She’s lucky,” he added. “A bit more, and…”
I nodded—at fate, and at myself.
On the way home, I made a decision. I wouldn’t run. I would play. On my terms.
He greeted me with a casual air. “How is she?” he asked, pouring tea.
“Alive,” I replied, then added, “I remembered the glasses were set differently.”
He froze.
“What are you saying?”
“For now, nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
I got up.
“And maybe you should start thinking about what you’ll say… if the police come.”
That night, neither of us slept. A silent war had begun—cold, watchful, deadly.
I started collecting evidence: receipts, messages, recordings. He didn’t suspect. He still thought I was the prey. But I was becoming the predator.
A week later, I was the perfect wife again—calm, obedient, even agreeable to his suggestion we go away “to relax.” I smiled, packed, and secretly hired a private detective.
I gave him everything—pharmacy slips, recordings, screenshots of texts from an unknown sender. One stood out: “After the anniversary, it’s all over.”
I kept acting, playing my role. Until one evening, as he poured me wine by the fireplace, there was a knock at the door.
A police officer and the detective stepped in.
“Mr. Orlov, you’re under arrest for attempted murder.”
His eyes widened in horror.
“You… you set me up?”
“No,” I replied calmly. “You set yourself up. I just didn’t die.”
He was taken away. And I stayed. Alive. Free. Stronger.
Two months passed. The trial began. The evidence was overwhelming. He remained in custody. Everything seemed… resolved.
Until I got a call from the detention center.
Behind the glass, thin and cold-eyed, he leaned in. “You got it wrong,” he said. “You weren’t the target.”
“What?”
“It was for her. My sister. She knew too much. Wanted too much.”
“You’re lying.”
“Check her phone. Then decide.”
Back home, I opened her old tablet. What I found shattered me.
She had been playing both sides. She’d been recording, spying… texting someone saved as “M.O.” And there it was, in a message:
“If she doesn’t leave on her own, we’ll arrange an accident. Brother needs a motive.”
They had plotted together. Against me. But why?
She soon recovered and returned home like nothing happened—smiling, baking, pretending.
So I kept pretending too.
I decided to find out who “M.O.” was. Using a fake name and a cover story, I arranged a meeting in a quiet café on the city’s edge.
A man in his fifties, suited and cold-eyed, waited for me.
“You requested a disappearance?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “I came with an offer. I can give you access to the ones who tried to eliminate me. In return, I want in.”
“You want revenge?”
“No. I want control.”
He agreed. Gave me a task—a small one, a test. I completed it in two days. No blood. Just precision. It scared me, how easily I could do it.
At home, I played the grieving wife. Meanwhile, his sister began calling more often. She sensed she was losing her grip. But she didn’t know what I had learned.
One night, I visited her.
“I know about M.O.,” I said flatly. “And your little plan.”
She turned white. “That’s… not true…”
“Don’t bother. I’m not here for an apology. I’m here with a choice.”
She listened in silence.
“Option one: disappear. For good.”
“Option two: stay. But now you work for me. Forever.”
“And if I refuse?”
I stood up.
“Then you’ll know what it feels like when the wrong glass ends up in front of you.”
I walked out.
She was gone by morning. The news later claimed she moved abroad. No one saw her again.
I looked in the mirror and realized: the woman I was had vanished.
I had become power. A ghost in the system. A predator they couldn’t kill.
I moved through the network, issuing orders, shifting fates. People whispered about me under different names. My past turned to legend.
Then one day, an envelope arrived. No name. Inside, a photo—of me, asleep on my couch. Someone had been in my home. Watching. And a note:
“You are not the first.”
The ground vanished beneath me. Someone else had always been in control. Even above “M.O.” A higher hand. Watching, waiting.
“M.O.” disappeared. The network began to crumble. People vanished. Someone was cleaning house.
Except me. I remained.
Maybe because they still needed me.
Now, I don’t live under my old name. I don’t speak of my past.
I just wait.
Because one day, they will come for me.
Or maybe… they already have.