“Why?”

Dominic’s question hung between them.

Elena stared at the divorce papers scattered across the bedroom floor.

“Because the doctor told me something I couldn’t let you know.”

Dominic felt his chest tighten.

“What did he tell you?”

Elena slowly reached beneath her pillow and pulled out a folded medical report.

Her hands trembled as she passed it to him.

Dominic unfolded the paper.

Three words caught his attention.

THORACOLUMBAR SPINAL FRACTURE.

Below them was a description of damage to two vertebrae, nerve compression, and the possibility of permanent mobility problems.

He read the report twice.

Then he looked at his wife.

“You’ve been living with this for six months?”

Elena nodded.

“The first specialist wanted to operate immediately. The second said surgery could make things worse. They fitted me with the brace and started rehabilitation.”

Dominic could barely breathe.

Every Tuesday morning.

Every locked door.

Every time she had pulled away when he tried to embrace her.

She hadn’t been rejecting him.

She had been hiding her pain.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered.

Elena’s eyes filled with tears.

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“Because someone told me that if you discovered how badly I was injured, you would never forgive yourself.”

“Who?”

She hesitated.

“Luca.”

The name landed like a stone.

Dominic slowly straightened.

“Luca knew?”

“He arranged my first appointment. He said you were already blaming yourself for the accident. He promised to help me recover privately.”

Dominic remembered Luca’s sympathetic voice.

A wife with secrets eventually gives them to another man.

Something cold moved through his stomach.

“What else did Luca tell you?”

Elena looked away.

“That you were seeing another woman.”

Dominic froze.

“What?”

“He showed me photographs. You entering a hotel with a brunette. You holding her hand outside a restaurant.”

Dominic stared at her.

“The woman was my attorney. We were preparing testimony against a corrupt shipping executive.”

Elena blinked.

“Luca said she was your mistress.”

“And he told me you were meeting another man every Tuesday.”

Silence filled the room.

For six months, someone had been carefully poisoning both sides of their marriage.

Dominic pulled out his phone.

“Marco. Find Luca Bellandi. Quietly. I want to know where he is.”

Elena suddenly grabbed his wrist.

“Dominic, wait.”

He turned.

Her face had gone white.

“There’s something else.”

She reached toward the bedside drawer and removed a small black flash drive.

“I wasn’t only going to the hospital on Tuesdays.”

Dominic stared at the device.

“What is that?”

“Three weeks after the accident, someone came to my rehabilitation clinic. A woman named Dr. Miriam Vale.”

“What did she want?”

“She said the car that hit me hadn’t lost control.”

Dominic stopped breathing.

Elena continued.

“She said the driver had been paid to kill you.”

Dominic’s jaw tightened.

“By whom?”

Elena swallowed.

“She wouldn’t tell me. She said she needed proof.”

“And this?”

“She gave me that drive yesterday. She told me to keep it somewhere nobody would think to look.”

Dominic reached for it.

But Elena pulled it back.

“Before you open it, you need to understand something.”

Her voice cracked.

“The accident wasn’t the only thing she investigated.”

“What else?”

Elena looked directly into his eyes.

“Your father’s death.”

Dominic went completely still.

His father, Anthony Rainer, had supposedly died of a heart attack seven years earlier.

He had collapsed inside the family office.

Luca Bellandi had been the person who found him.

Dominic stared at the drive.

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“What does my father have to do with your accident?”

Elena’s lips trembled.

“I don’t know. But Miriam said the same person was involved in both.”

At that moment, Dominic’s phone rang.

Marco.

“Boss, we found Luca’s car.”

“Where?”

“Outside the private clinic where Mrs. Rainer receives treatment.”

Dominic felt his blood turn cold.

“Is Luca there?”

“No, sir.”

A pause.

Then Marco spoke again.

“But Dr. Vale’s office has been destroyed. Someone forced the door, smashed the computers, and took the security recordings.”

Dominic looked at Elena.

Marco lowered his voice.

“And boss… there’s blood on the examination-room floor.”

The call ended.

Elena covered her mouth.

Dominic looked down at the flash drive.

Then he noticed something written on its underside in tiny silver letters.

A date.

November 14.

The exact night of the accident.

And beneath it, five words:

DOMINIC WAS NOT THE TARGET.

For the first time in his life, Dominic Rainer was afraid of discovering the truth.

Because if he hadn’t been the intended victim…

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Someone had deliberately tried to kill his wife.