The next day I waited until the house was completely silent.
Aiden wasn't here. His absence felt heavier than his presence—like the walls were finally exhaling. I locked the bedroom door, pulled the curtains shut, and took out the USB drive with shaking fingers.
I found an old laptop hidden inside the wardrobe—forgotten, outdated, but functional. I tried possible passcodes,even tried 'Alice', nothing happened.
Then something crossed my mind like 'deja vu',the dream where i remembered opening this laptop,the name was 'misty',but we we met recently,so i didn't thought it's possibility yet i tried & it opened!
My pulse roared in my ears as I plugged the drive in.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then a single folder opened on its own.
No title. Just a date.
Inside were files—videos, documents, voice recordings. I clicked the first one without thinking.
It wasn't a video of violence. That would've been easier to process.
It was a confession.
A woman's voice—calm at first, cultured, educated. His first wife.
She spoke about how Aiden had two lives. About a man who attended charity galas by day and disappeared for weeks by night. About another name that surfaced in whispers. About a "replacement system." About contracts. About how women didn't leave—they were removed once they stopped fitting the role.
My stomach turned.
I opened another file.
A scanned medical report. DNA comparison.
Two men. Same face. Different results.
Not brothers.
Not twins.
Partners in crime.
Another file—photos of churches.Engaggement records. Different names. Same groom. Different fiancées. Dates overlapping.
Then I found the last recording.
Her voice again. This time trembling.
"I found the room. He knows. If someone ever finds this—he doesn't marry for love. He marries to do business. When the act ends… so do we.It's hard to track him because he has a look alike,that helps him."
The recording cut off abruptly.
No goodbye.
No ending.
I stared at the screen until my vision blurred.
She hadn't run away.
She had known.
And now I understood why Aiden hadn't killed me.
I wasn't special.
I was next.
_________
My hands were still shaking when I pulled the USB out.
The truth sat heavy in my chest, sharp and burning. I couldn't stay quiet anymore. If I stayed alone, I would disappear the same way the others did—silenced, erased, rewritten as run away.
But together?
Together, we could end him.
I opened my phone and began taking pictures of the files on the screen—names, dates, marriage records, recordings paused mid-confession. I copied everything onto a cloud account I had never used before, one no one knew existed. Then I started drafting messages, careful and coded, addressed to the families I could trace—the parents of the first wife, an old address linked to another woman, a charity board member listed as an emergency contact.
Your daughter didn't leave. She was murdered. I have proof. If you want justice, don't go to the police alone. Contact me.
________
After the USB, I couldn't stop.
Curiosity had already crossed into survival.
I went back to his study while the house slept, every step careful, every sound too loud in my ears. His laptop sat exactly where I'd seen it before. Familiar. Intimate. Like it belonged to him in a way nothing else did.(The new one)
My fingers hovered before I touched it.
He had told me—sworn—that the murders were done by his look-alike. That he was different. That the blood on his life wasn't his own.
I opened the laptop.
It asked for a passcode.
I hesitated, then typed my name.
The screen unlocked instantly.
A chill slid down my spine.
Inside were folders—neat, dated, methodical. I opened one.
Photos.
Videos.
Faces I recognized from the USB. From the diary. From the stories that ended in ran away or accident. Some smiling. Some crying. Some already still.
My stomach twisted violently.
This wasn't someone else's archive.
This was his.
The angles were intimate. Close. Personal. The kind only the killer could record. The timestamps overlapped with days he'd been "with me." With notes written in his voice—his phrasing, his precision.
My hands started shaking.
If this laptop was his…
If the passcode was my name…
Then what about the look-alike?
Why would another man lock his secrets behind me?
Unless—
Unless there was never a separate man.
Unless I wasn't just a witness.
I was a trigger.
A key.
A "special piece," chosen carefully, placed deliberately into his life.
The thought made my skin crawl.
I closed the laptop slowly, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.
He hadn't lied about everything.
But the truth was far worse than a body double.
The monster wasn't two men sharing one face.
It was one man—fractured, dangerous—
And I was standing at the center of his obsession.
__________
My breath hitched as footsteps echoed somewhere downstairs.
I froze.
The laptop snapped shut. The USB disappeared into my sleeve just as the front door opened.
"I'm back."
His voice.
Warm. Familiar. Wrong.
My heart slammed so hard I thought it would give me away. I slipped behind the heavy curtain near the study door, pressing myself into the shadows.
Footsteps crossed the marble floor—steady, unhurried.
"I know you're home," he said lightly, almost teasing. "You always forget to lock the back door."
I peeked through the gap.
Same face. Same height. Same posture.
But something was… off.
The way he loosened his tie. The way his eyes scanned the room—not possessive, not obsessive. Observant. Calculating.
Cold.
My stomach dropped.
This wasn't my Aiden.
This was the other one.
The body double.
My mind raced, colliding with a memory—Aiden's voice, low and dismissive, telling me once that he was dead. That there had been an accident. That the past was over.
Then why was he standing in our house?
The man walked closer to the study, stopping just short of where I hid.
"For a second," he murmured to himself, "I thought you'd already figured it out."
My blood ran cold.
He smiled faintly, like someone enjoying a private joke.
"Relax," he said, glancing toward the hallway. "He'll be home later. I'm just filling in."
Filling in.
Two men. One life. And I was standing in the middle of something far bigger than a marriage… or a murder.
Then the game was already moving.
And I was no longer just a pawn.