I Drained The Bank Before My Husband Could Kill Me Chapter 2

Late the next morning, a shrill phone call sliced through the fragile calm of the room.

It was Wesley’s regular phone, the one he’d placed on the nightstand.

He jumped up from the sofa, answered, and put it on speaker.

“Hello? Wes, are you two okay?” It was Mitch, his friend from college.

“Mitch? How did you get this number? I told you not to contact me!” Wesley's voice was filled with a convincing mix of alertness and panic.

“I...” Mitch hesitated on the other end. “Wes, you need to brace yourself. I just heard from a cop friend. Your building... The whole floor, man. Only you two made it out alive.”

The line was a clap of thunder in the quiet room.

I watched Wesley’s body sway, his face instantly draining of color.

“What did you say?” His voice was a pathetic tremble. “Did you say... everyone... everyone is gone?”

“Yeah, they’re... all gone.” Mitch’s voice sounded genuinely broken.

The call ended.

Wesley stood frozen, a statue with no soul.

A few seconds later, he let out a guttural, earth-shaking howl.

“Ahhhhhh—!”

He violently hammered his fists into his chest, tears and snot smearing his face. He looked utterly destroyed by grief and terror.

“It’s my fault! I should have knocked on their doors! I should have saved them!”

He sobbed, collapsing in front of me and pulling me into a crushing hug, his body racked with convulsions.

“Sophia, thank God! Thank God I saved you!”

“Thank God we’re alive!”

His performance was so raw, so utterly convincing, that for a moment, I almost doubted my own sanity—maybe the balcony conversation was just a stress-induced hallucination.

I reached up, gently stroking his shuddering back, my movements soft, but my gaze was arctic cold.

“It’s okay, Wesley. It’s not your fault.” My voice was steady, surprisingly so.

He cried for a long time before finally calming down. He looked up at me, red-eyed, the picture of a lost, homeless dog.

“Babe, we can’t go back,” he choked out.

“That house—it’s a grave now. We can’t live there. It’s too terrible.”

I lowered my eyes, waiting. I knew where this was going.

“We have to sell the house,” he finally said. “Sell the house, leave this city, and wipe away all the painful memories. We’ll start over.”

What a thoughtful suggestion.

What a declaration of undying love.

If I hadn’t heard that phone call last night, I would have been overwhelmingly moved and would have agreed without hesitation. After all, the apartment was my sole asset, purchased with cash before we married, and only my name was on the deed.

“Okay,” I whispered, compliant as a lamb.

The hunger in Wesley’s eyes was instantaneous. A flicker of raw, undisguised greed—quick enough that it was gone before most people could register it.

“And listen,” he pressed his advantage. “The world is chaos right now. For safety, I need you to give me your ID, your bank cards, everything. I’ll handle the sale of the house. You just rest, okay? Don't worry about a thing.”

The shark finally breached the water.

This entire elaborate charade was for one thing: the apartment in my name and the savings in my bank accounts.

This man, who I had shared a bed with for three years, was a meticulous, cold-blooded executioner.

And he wanted to murder my financial independence.

My heart sank to the bottom of a frozen well, devoid of all warmth.

“All right,” I said, looking up at him with a pale, dependent smile. “I’ll do whatever you say.”