But the woman wearing my Christmas gift wasn’t even the most disturbing part of what Daniel had concealed. My name isn’t given here, and the day Daniel underestimated me was the day he brought himself down.

By Thursday evening, the atmosphere in our house was thick enough to choke on.

Daniel barely slept. He spent hours in his study, pacing, drinking, whispering frantically into his phone. Every time the floorboards creaked, he flinched. The pressure from Mercer’s thugs was mounting; twice that afternoon, an unmarked black SUV with tinted windows had idled at the foot of our gravel driveway before speeding away.

At 7:00 PM, Daniel came into the kitchen carrying a small glass of fresh orange juice.

"Here, baby," he said, his voice abnormally bright. "You said you were feeling fatigued. I squeezed this for you. High dose of Vitamin C."

I looked at the glass. In the golden light of the pendant lamps, the liquid looked innocent enough, but there was a faint, milky film clinging to the interior rim of the glass.

Digitalis. Or a concentrated beta-blocker. Something designed to interact lethally with the "arrhythmia" he had fabricated in my medical records. Something that would cause a quiet, tragic cardiac arrest in my sleep, leaving no obvious signs of trauma for a sleepy medical examiner to question.

"Thank you, Daniel," I said softly, taking the glass from his hand. "You're so thoughtful."

He stood there, watching me, his breath shallow. "Drink it while it's fresh."

I lifted the glass toward my lips. Daniel’s eyes dilated.

Just as the rim touched my mouth, the smoke detector in the hallway screeched with ear-splitting ferocity.

Daniel jumped, cursing loudly. "What the hell—"

"The roast in the oven!" I cried, setting the glass down on the counter and running toward the stove. "The drippings caught fire!"

I whipped open the oven door, billowing a plume of harmless white smoke into the kitchen—smoke generated by the high-heat cooking oil I had deliberately splattered across the bottom element ten minutes earlier.

While Daniel hurried to open the back patio doors to clear the air, flapping a dish towel in frustration, I calmly grabbed the glass of orange juice, dumped it down the drain, ran the faucet for five seconds, and refilled the glass with identical fresh juice from a store-bought carton in the fridge.

When Daniel returned, coughing, the smoke detector had quieted.

I was standing by the island, holding the refilled glass, wiping my mouth with a napkin. "Sorry about that, darling. But look—I drank it all."

Daniel stared at the empty glass. A look of overwhelming, sickening relief washed over his face, quickly followed by a dark, cold detachment.

"Good girl," he murmured, his voice dead. "Go upstairs and lie down. You need to rest before tomorrow night."

"Aren't you coming up?" I asked innocently.

"Soon," he said, turning his back to me to rinse the empty glass in the sink, destroying any residue he thought remained. "I have a few final details to settle for the gala tomorrow."