The cold evening air slapped my cheeks the moment I stepped out of the taxi and stood before my father's gate. I didn't realize I was shaking until the guard rushed forward to open the door. He called my name, but my head was too full, too loud, to respond.
My whole world had folded into itself like paper.
Six years of marriage.
Six years of trust.
Six years of loving a man who had been secretly married to another woman.
A woman who carried my name.
My history.
My past.
Miranda Albert.
The same girl who tormented me throughout high school. The same girl who made me dread walking into class each day. The same girl who mocked my weight, my clothes, my voice, my very existence. And now she was… Edward's "real" wife?
I didn't even wait for the full confrontation. I just ran.
Left the house with nothing but my handbag and my breath that kept breaking inside my chest.
By the time I made it inside, my father was already standing in the living room, looking at me the same way he looked at me when I was a child who came home wounded from school, full of fear, but trying not to show it.
"Miranda," he whispered, stepping closer.
And for the first time in six years, I broke.
I let myself fall apart in his arms. My father held me like he was afraid I would disappear.
"Tell me," he said.
So I did.
Every word tasted like poison.
When I finished, my father didn't shout. He didn't panic. He just walked to his study and came back with documents, property papers he'd signed over to me on my wedding day.
"You're taking back everything," he said calmly. "If he doesn't see your worth, he won't see your inheritance either."
Within forty-eight hours, everything my father had placed under Edward's name was reversed. Properties. Investments. Shares. All pulled back.
Every lawyer moved fast.
I thought I would feel better, but I didn't.
Anger didn't heal betrayal.
It only sharpened it.
On the third evening, as I sat in my old bedroom trying to understand how my life had shifted so violently, the doorbell rang.
My father's guards rushed toward the gate, and seconds later, a familiar voice echoed through the house.
Edward.
Of course.
I should've expected him.
The moment he stepped inside, he looked completely different from the loving husband I had lived with. His eyes held no shame, no tenderness—just annoyance.
"Miranda," he said sharply. "Why would you reverse the properties without talking to me?"
I didn't answer him. I didn't owe him answers.
My father stepped between us. "Get out of my house."
Edward clenched his jaw so hard I could hear his teeth grind. "Do you understand what people will think? Do you realize what kind of disgrace this is?"
"You disgraced yourself," my father snapped.
Edward ignored him and looked straight at me.
His expression froze into something dark—colder than anything I'd seen.
"You're making dangerous decisions," he said. "And if anything happens to you… anything at all… everyone will know who caused it."
My heart stilled.
He wasn't threatening me.
He was warning me.
As if he already had a plan.
My father ordered the guards to drag him out, and they did. Edward didn't fight. He didn't shout. He simply walked away, but the look in his eyes followed me long after he was gone.
I didn't sleep that night.
I kept replaying everything.
His tone.
His calmness.
His subtle warning.
It didn't feel like a desperate husband.
It felt like a man who still believed he had control over me.
Like someone who knew I wasn't safe.
By morning, I made a decision that tasted like fire in my mouth.
I sat there in my father's study long after Edward stormed out, staring at the door he had slammed. The echo still trembled in my chest like a warning bell. My father was pacing, furious, but I wasn't looking at him, I was staring at my own hands. They were shaking. Not from fear… but from restraint.
For a moment, I imagined grabbing Edward by the collar and screaming in his face,
"I know everything. I know what you did. I know who she is. I know who YOU are."
But I couldn't.
Not yet.
Pretending ignorance was the only weapon I had left.
I leaned back in the leather chair, breathing slowly. "Dad," I finally whispered, "I need to go back."
He froze. "Miranda, absolutely not."
"I have to," I insisted gently. "If I disappear now, she wins. If I confront him now, they'll destroy the evidence. I need to remain inside that house. I need to understand how deep this deception really goes."
His shoulders dropped in defeat. "You're still my child… even if you're acting like a soldier."
Maybe I was. Pain makes soldiers out of soft women.
"I'll be careful," I promised, though even I wasn't sure.
Before leaving his study, I walked through each room in the house, the house I grew up in. The house where I ran around barefoot as a child, safe, protected, untouched by betrayal. My mother's portrait watched me silently, like she knew what I was going through. I touched the gold frame lightly.
"I'll be okay, Mom," I whispered. "I'll come back alive."
When it was time to leave, dusk was falling, washing the streets in a sad kind of orange. My father insisted on sending one of his trusted security men to follow me discreetly. I didn't argue. I needed every advantage.
Inside Edward's house, my house, I paused for a long moment at the doorway. The silence felt heavier than usual, like the walls were holding their breath, waiting to see whether I would crack.
I didn't.
I walked slowly inside, forcing my heartbeat to settle. I needed to look normal. Calm. Unaware.
You can't kill a woman who's already awake, I told myself.
But deep down, a fear I refused to admit crawled beneath my ribs.
How long had Edward been planning this?
How long had she, the impostor, been studying me?
I closed my eyes briefly, steadying myself.
"This is just the beginning," I whispered into the empty living room. "Play your game, Edward. I'll play mine."
And quietly… I stepped fully back into the cage.