The Lies I Believed

Surprise

Asher

I was working when Brad stormed into my office. I looked up from my computer just as I received an email from an unknown sender.

"What is it this time?" I asked. "Hayden already said I should apologize. I hope he didn't go to you."

"What are you talking about?" he growled.

I guess he doesn't know about our fight. I thought Lexi would say something to him. It's no longer odd to get chewed out by him after an argument.

"If you don't know, then it isn't that important." I shrugged.

"Have you called Lexi since you left?"

"No, is there something wrong?"

"Is your phone off!" Brad all but lunged across the room to grab my phone. I watched as he powered it back on and we waited to hear the notifications rolling in. I wasn't at all surprised by the back to back dinging of my notifications.

"You have twenty missed calls from your wife..." He glared at me. "You say you love her to death, but after one argument, you switch off your phone and pretend you're a single father all over again."

"I wasn't pretending to be a single father."

"Then, what were you doing, while your wife was being kidnapped?"

"Kidnapped?" I perked up at this news. If Lexi was telling the truth about not being able to tell me what she was doing that night, then that makes sense. Who would want to kidnap her? "What have I done?"

"Everything and nothing. You're a horrible excuse for a husband. I don't get how Lexi convinced me that you had changed." Brad looked like he might choke me until my head popped off. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

"The email you just got?"

Nosy much?

I returned my attention back to my computer and clicked on the email. I set my computer up to track any email I receive, but it was giving me nothing. There was no known sender. The email contained a video with a blank thumbnail. If I opened it, I could risk releasing a virus. All my important documents would be erased.

"You might as well watch the video." Brad smirked. "It's too late to back out now. Or are you scared of a little virus?"

"Wouldn't you be?" I asked.

"Nope. Emails with unknown senders immediately get deleted. You must not be as smart as you pretend to be."

After reassuring myself that my most important files had been backed up, I clicked on the video. At first, there was nothing. The screen remained dark for thirty seconds. I was tempted to close it out, but then we heard shuffling. Two men began speaking to each other in hushed voices. I could barely make out what they were saying. I'll just run it through another program later.

The camera then panned to someone sitting in a chair with their head covered. Judging by the way they were dressed, it was a female. Did someone send me a snuff film? Ugh, I hope not. That's the last thing I want to see.

A man then walked into the frame and stood beside the woman. The camera had been adjusted, so we were only seeing him from the chest down. Well, I guess he knows a lot about keeping a secret identity.

"Asher, I have a little surprise for you," he announced. "If you haven't heard the news by now, I hope you're sitting down. It surprised me at how easy it was to pull this off. What does a woman gotta do to get her husband to pay attention to her?"