Chapter 5
Victoria denied it.
For five minutes.
Then stopped.
She never permanently damaged the hearing aid before tonight.
True.
She simply encouraged breaks.
Quiet time.
Battery changes later.
Nothing that looked abusive alone.
Why?
Because Marcus had become unstable.
Not violent.
Talkative.
He kept cornering her at family events.
Reminding her what they did.
Threatening confession.
Noah wandered everywhere.
Children do.
Victoria began worrying he would absorb fragments.
So she removed his device when Marcus appeared nearby.
Her logic sickened me.
She framed it as protecting Noah from adult problems.
In reality, she made his disability convenient.
“You turned his hearing into a switch.”
Her face broke.
“I didn’t think of it like that.”
“You did tonight.”
Silence.
Then I asked something else.
“Did Clara know you were involved with Marcus before the terrace?”
Victoria hesitated.
“Yes.”
How?
A text appeared on Victoria’s phone while Clara sat beside her two days earlier.
Nothing explicit.
Enough.
Clara asked.
Victoria lied.
Clara believed her.
Then caught them.
That mattered because Clara walked onto the terrace not only shocked by an affair.
Betrayed by a friend who had looked into her eyes and lied days earlier.
Marcus interrupted.
“She was going to leave you anyway.”
I turned.
“What?”
He realized too late.
“Explain.”
Clara had spoken to Marcus privately weeks before her death.
Not about him and Victoria.
About me.
Our marriage was struggling.
She was tired of security.
Mafia dinners.
Watching me become colder after every betrayal.
She wanted a temporary separation.
Not divorce necessarily.
Not taking Noah permanently.
Space.
Marcus knew.
Did not tell me.
Why?
Not his business.
Fair.
Then after Clara died, he used that knowledge differently.
He told Victoria:
“Rocco would have lost her anyway.”
A guilt anesthetic.
If the marriage was already cracking, perhaps their affair mattered less.
If Clara planned to leave, perhaps the terrace confrontation merely accelerated inevitable pain.
Humans can justify almost anything by pretending the victim was already halfway gone.
I looked at Marcus.
“She was alive.”
He said nothing.
“She had choices left.”
Silence.
May you like
“You don’t get to use the future she never reached as an excuse for what you did in the present.”
That ended it.
