"My husband brought his mistress into our bedroom while I lay dying, then let her measure the windows for the curtains she planned to hang after my funeral

The afternoon sun shifted, throwing long, golden beams across the hardwood floor.

Downstairs, the front door opened again, accompanied by the sharp click of stiletto heels and the overwhelming, suffocating scent of cheap, heavy floral perfume—designer jasmine mixed with synthetic musk.

I didn't need to see her to know who it was.

Jessica.

She had been entering our lives with increasing frequency over the past six months, introduced initially as a freelance marketing consultant assisting David with his real estate ventures. It didn't take a genius to realize her true title.

David set the silver tray down on the nightstand, wiped his hands on a linen napkin, and smiled warmly down at me.

“I brought a guest up today, darling,” David said smoothly, his eyes flashing with a cold, triumphant gleam that vanished the second he turned toward the doorway. “An interior designer. I thought... well, since you spend so much time in this room, maybe it’s time to brighten things up a bit. Bring some life back into the space.”

He walked over to the door and ushered Jessica inside.

She wore an expensive white Chanel pantsuit, oversized sunglasses pushed up into her bleached-blonde hair, and a smile so wide and self-satisfied it practically screamed victory.

“Oh, David,” Jessica purred, wrinkling her perfectly sculpted nose as she stepped into the master bedroom. “This room feels like an absolute tomb. It’s so dark, so depressing. I can barely breathe in here.”

She didn't even look at me lying motionless on the medical bed, as if I were already a piece of antique furniture she planned to throw out with the trash.

“Well, we’ll change all that very soon, sweetheart,” David said, stepping up behind her, wrapping his arms around her slender waist, and pressing a warm, lingering kiss against the side of her neck.

Jessica giggled, leaning back against his chest. “Choose whatever you want, David. New drapes, new carpets, a king-size California bed. The whole house will be yours soon anyway. We can finally make it ours.”

“Anything for you,” David whispered.

I lay completely motionless beneath the heavy floral-patterned blankets. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, but externally, my face remained slack, my breathing shallow and rhythmic—the perfect performance of a dying woman whose cognitive functions were slowly fading into the dark.

Jessica stepped away from David, pulling a heavy metallic measuring tape from her designer leather purse.

She strutted across the room, stopping directly beside my medical bed. She didn't bother to step around it; instead, she leaned right across my chest, her perfume suffocating my nostrils, and hooked the metal tab of the tape measure against the top corner of the massive bay window frame.

Snap.

She pulled the yellow metal strip outward, letting it stretch taut right over my fragile, poisoned body as if I were already buried beneath the floorboards.

“Look at this drop,” Jessica laughed, pointing the metal housing toward the glass. “Sixteen feet of ugly velvet. I want light, airy sheer linen when I move in. Something modern. Something alive.”

David chuckled along with her, walking over to stand beside the window, his arm casually draped over her shoulder.

“Linen sounds perfect,” David agreed, his eyes locking onto Jessica with hungry adoration. “Just give it a few days, and you can pick out whatever catalogs you like.”

Neither of them saw my right hand, resting quietly under the edge of the blanket.

Neither of them noticed my eyes—hidden beneath long, dark lashes—suddenly snap wide open, burning with a cold, razor-sharp intelligence.

Beside the bed, resting inconspicuously on a medical stand disguised as a monitor shelf, sat my eye-tracking computer. It was a custom-built, medical-grade communication device wired directly into an encrypted satellite relay, designed for ALS patients who had lost the ability to speak or move.

All I needed was my eyes.

I locked my gaze onto the amber optical sensor mounted beneath the monitor screen. The user interface flickered to life in my peripheral vision, invisible to anyone standing more than two feet away.

I blinked through the primary security authentication sequence.

Left blink. Right blink. Double-blink.

A small, secure command window materialized in the corner of the screen. I hovered my cursor over a pre-programmed encrypted macro script—a digital execution protocol designed months ago, sitting dormant in the cloud, waiting for this exact moment.