The Corpse in Bed Strikes Back Chapter 2

When Grant kicked the front door open, I was slowly and methodically dusting a Song Dynasty porcelain vase on the bookshelf. I’d bought it at an auction two years ago; he’d mocked me then, calling it "a broken jar" not worth the six figures I paid. He never understood art; he only understood the shallow vanity built on money and profit.

“Rory! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

He stormed toward me, his face a mask of scarlet rage, his eyes bloodshot. He slammed his phone down hard on the mahogany coffee table in front of me. The screen showed the apartment complex’s community chat log: The obscene photo and a flood of vicious commentary had completely taken over the thread.

“Do you have any idea how badly this affects my reputation?!” he roared, spittle flying toward my face. I could smell the stale mix of smoke, whiskey, and the other woman’s perfume on him.

See? He didn't mention his betrayal once. Only his reputation.

I set down the soft cloth, picked up the vase—now polished to a perfect, soft luster—and held it up to the light for inspection.

“Your reputation?” I said, my gaze still on the porcelain, my voice as flat as if I were discussing the weather. “It’s the one you rolled around in bed and earned with her. It has nothing to do with me.”

“You!”

His chest heaved with fury. He grabbed my wrist, his grip so strong I thought he might shatter the bones. “You fix this now! You will go and tell them it was a mistake! You will apologize to Sage!”

He was still commanding me. Five years of marriage had conditioned him to this high-and-mighty posture, to my expected subservience and forbearance.

I finally lifted my eyes to meet his.

My gaze held none of the past warmth, the adoration, or even the expected anger or resentment. All that remained was a cold, alien assessment that clearly unnerved him.

“Grant Kingsley, what gives you the right to order me?”

He froze.

In five years, this was the first time I had used that tone, that look, with him. The raw fury in his eyes stalled, replaced by bewilderment and disbelief.

“You ruined Sage! She’s just a girl fresh out of college! She didn’t know any better!” He was still defending his mistress, still shifting all the blame onto me. He was always like this—selfish to his core.

I smiled, a small, quiet sound that nonetheless prompted him to instinctively loosen his grip on my wrist.

“Ruined her? No.” I gently rubbed the red marks forming on my wrist. “I’m making her famous. Look. Now her entire complex—no, soon her entire firm—will know she is Grant Kingsley’s one true love. She should be thanking me.”

My words were a pointed dagger, precisely hitting his most vulnerable spot. His self-control snapped. He raised his hand, ready to deliver a vicious slap across my face.

I didn’t flinch.

But as I took one step back, my other hand shot up, the phone’s camera already facing him. The screen displayed his contorted, snarling face and his raised arm in an ugly close-up.

“Do it.”

I looked at him calmly, my voice low but every syllable crystal clear.

“Hit me.”

“I promise you, the cover of the next ‘grand gift’ will be a special feature on you, Grant Kingsley, the wife-beater.”

His hand froze mid-air.

It was only inches from my cheek; I could feel the faint current of air from his palm. The raging inferno in his eyes was instantly extinguished, replaced by profound shock and undisguised fear at the sight of the camera lens.

He stared at me as if seeing me for the first time.

And he was. He had never truly seen me. In his mind, I was just a mild, uninteresting accessory, a "trophy wife" to sit safely at home, decorate his public image, and manage his domestic life.

He never once considered that the "corpse in the sack" might still have teeth.

Slowly, inch by painful inch, he lowered the hand suspended in the air.

I watched the fear and confusion swim in his eyes, and I knew: from this exact moment, this game had slipped entirely out of his control. I was the chess master, and he, along with his ambitious young mistress, were merely the pawns I had unleashed.