Chapter 2

I stood on the curb for about ten minutes.

Then I called an Uber.

The driver glanced at my face in the rearview mirror but asked no questions.

I gave him the address.

It was the old apartment my mother had left me—a two-bedroom on Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights.

Marco didn’t know about it.

In three years of marriage, he had never asked about my assets. He only cared about what I could give him.

Traffic was backed up on the BQE.

When I finally got inside, I locked the door behind me.

Then I sat on the old living room couch and stared at the ceiling.

My face still throbbed. I went to the freezer, grabbed a bag of frozen peas, and pressed it to my cheek.

The cold was sharp, almost painful.

Then I started thinking about what happened today.

Not the five slaps.

The photo Marco had taken.

Why had he taken a picture of me being hit?

To send to someone? To keep and laugh at later?

And then I remembered something else.

Last month, on Francesca’s birthday, Marco had used the company credit card to buy her a necklace.

Eighty thousand dollars.

I’d said only one thing.

“You can’t use company funds like that.”

Marco’s expression had turned cold in an instant.

“That’s none of your business.”

“I’m a shareholder’s wife,” I’d told him. “I have every right to ask.”

He laughed.

“What makes you think you count as a shareholder’s wife?”

“The company is mine. You’re just a name on a piece of paper.”

Just a name on a piece of paper.

That wasn’t what he’d said when we got married.

Back then, he’d said, *Astrid, your patents are our future.*

I believed him.

I gave his company the exclusive license to use the two core formula patents my mother had left me.

They were for skincare.

Those two patents had been my mother’s life’s work.

My mother was a chemical engineer. She’d worked at Johnson & Johnson for thirty years before she retired.

Those two formulas were her legacy.

With them, Marco’s company had grown its annual revenue from two million dollars to eighty million in three years.

But the name on the patent certificates had always been mine.

Before she died, my mother had made sure all the paperwork was notarized.

“Astrid,” she’d told me, “these two formulas are your safety net. Don’t ever sign them over to anyone.”

I hadn’t signed them over.

I had only licensed them.

Marco had probably never bothered to read the licensing agreement closely.

I sat on the couch, shifting the bag of frozen peas from my left cheek to my right.

My phone rang.

Marco.

“Where are you? Why aren’t you home?”

He sounded as if nothing had happened.

I hung up.

It rang again.

Still him.

“Astrid, stop being ridiculous.”

“You were wrong to go through Francesca’s private drawer. A few slaps were you getting off easy.”

I silenced my phone and tossed it onto the coffee table.

Then I sat there, looking at the photograph of my mother on the wall.

In the picture, she was wearing a white lab coat.

Her hair was neatly combed, her smile gentle.

*Mom, I got hit today.*

*My husband stood there watching while another woman slapped me five times.*

*But don’t worry.*

*I know exactly what to do next.*