At the evening wedding anniversary, my husband solemnly raised his glass. I followed his example but suddenly noticed: he quietly slipped something into my glass. A cold, uneasy feeling clenched my stomach. I decided not to take any risks.
When everyone was distracted, I carefully swapped my glass with the glass of his sister sitting nearby.
About ten minutes later, we clinked glasses and drank. And almost immediately, she felt sick. Screams, panic. My husband went pale as if he himself was about to collapse.
I sat and stared at him. My mind hammered: “What have you planned, my love?”
They took his sister away in an ambulance. Everyone was in shock. I tried to look calm, but inside everything was trembling. And when my husband went outside to make a call, I followed him quietly, like a shadow.
“How did this happen?” he said anxiously. “No, she wasn’t supposed to drink… I definitely swapped the glasses!”
My heart froze. So I hadn’t been wrong. He really wanted to poison me. All this was prepared for me.
Quietly returning to the house, I took my place at the table again. I tried to breathe evenly, to hold back my gaze. Only one question echoed in my mind: Why? For what? We had lived together for years… I trusted him. Loved him. Or so I thought.
Later, he came up to me.
“How do you feel?” he asked with a forced smile.
“Good,” I answered, looking straight into his eyes. “And you?”
He faltered. A glance flickered and then hid. He understood.
And I knew: from that moment, everything would change. But the main thing — I was alive. And the truth would surely come out.
The next morning, I arrived at the hospital. His sister was lying in the ward — pale, weak, but conscious. The doctors said, “It was a serious poisoning. She was lucky. If the dose had been a little more…”
I gratefully nodded to fate. And to myself as well.
On the way home, I made a decision — to play this game, but on my own terms.
At home, he greeted me as if nothing had happened:
“How is she?” he asked, pouring tea.
I smiled.
“Alive. And I remembered the glasses were placed differently,” I added, not averting my eyes.
He froze. His fingers trembled.
“What do you mean by that?”
“For now, nothing. Just an observation.”
I stood up from the table.
“And you think about what you’ll tell the police if I decide to talk to them.”
That night, he didn’t sleep. Neither did I. A war began in the house — cold, quiet, full of unspoken words and pretenses. Every glance was like a blow, every conversation — a test.
I began collecting evidence. Messages, pharmacy receipts, recordings of phone conversations. I had time. He didn’t even suspect I wasn’t a victim. I was a hunter.
A week passed. My husband became nervous. Unexpectedly, he found in me the “perfect wife” — gentle, understanding, agreeing to everything. Especially his proposal to go out of town — “to relax together.” I smiled, nodded, packed a suitcase. But behind his back, I contacted a private detective.
I handed him everything I had gathered: pharmacy receipts, the recording, a screenshot of messages from an unknown number where my husband wrote:
“After the anniversary, it’s all over.”
I played the role. Cooked dinners, listened to him, nodded. Until one evening.
We sat by the fireplace. He poured me wine again.
“To us,” he said, raising his glass.
“To us,” I repeated and… did not touch the glass.
At that moment, there was a knock at the door. He jumped. I stood up and opened.
At the threshold stood a police officer and a private detective.
“Mr. Orlov, you are under arrest on suspicion of attempted murder.”
He turned to me with a look of horror.
“You… You framed me?”
“No,” I stepped closer, looking him straight in the eyes. “You framed yourself. I just survived.”
They took him away. And I stayed. Alive. Free. And stronger than ever.
Two months passed. The trial went on its course. All the evidence was against him. He was in pretrial detention, his lawyer looked defeated.
Everything seemed too simple. Too neat.
One evening I got a call from the detention center.
“He wants to meet you. Says he will tell everything — only to you.”
I stared at the phone for a long time. But curiosity won.
He sat behind the glass, gaunt but with the same spark in his eyes.
“You know,” he leaned closer, “you got it all wrong. You weren’t the target.”
I froze.
“What?”
“It was all for her,” he smirked. “For my sister. She knew too much. And demanded too much.”
“You’re lying,” I whispered.
“Check her phone. See who she was talking to. Then we’ll talk.”
I returned home at dawn. Didn’t sleep until sunrise. I opened an old tablet that belonged to his sister. What I found inside turned everything I knew upside down.
She really was playing a double game. Eavesdropping. Recording. Messaging someone under the nickname “M.O.” One of the last messages knocked the ground out from under me:
“If she doesn’t leave on her own, we’ll have to arrange an accident. Brother needs a motive.”
I reread those lines again and again. I was shaking. The realization came sharply: it wasn’t his trap. It was their joint game. Against me.
The sister was already out of the hospital, acting as if nothing happened. Smiling, baking pies, offering help. And I kept playing. But now — for real.
I started looking for “M.O.”: contacts, numbers, traces in messages. It turned out it was not just a person. It was an entire system. A shadow organization that solves “problems” for money. Big money.
So it turned out, my husband wanted to get rid of his sister, and the sister — of me. And someone else was pulling the strings, directing them both. The game was on a level beyond my understanding.
I decided to meet “M.O.” — under a false name, with a made-up story. Came to a cafe on the outskirts of town. A man about fifty, in a strict suit, with a cold look and emotionless voice waited at the table.
“You ordered a disappearance?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “I came to offer cooperation.”
He looked at me attentively.
“What exactly?”
I smiled.
“Information. Access to all who tried to get rid of me. In exchange — help. We can be useful to each other.”
He took a sip of coffee.
“You want revenge?”
“No. I want to control the game. It’s over. Now I decide who goes where.”
I entered this world quietly. First as an observer. Then as a player. I learned quickly, without unnecessary words. I was no longer the weak link. I became a variable — the one they didn’t foresee.
“M.O.” realized it was better to cooperate with me than to conflict. He gave me the first task — simple, almost symbolic. A test.
I completed it in two days — without blood, but with calculated coldness. I even liked it. Only frightened by how easily it came to me.
Meanwhile, I continued playing the grieving wife. My husband was in detention, preparing for trial. His sister started calling more often — as if she felt she was losing control. She didn’t even suspect I now knew everything.
One night, I came to her unannounced. Sat opposite.
“I know about M.O.,” I said calmly. “And about your order on me.”
She went pale.
“That… That’s not true…”
“Too late. I’m not here for apologies. I’m giving you a choice.”
She looked at me, holding her breath.
“First option: you disappear. Forever.”
“Second: you stay, but now you work for me. Until the end of your days.”
“And if I refuse?”
I stood up, walked to the door.
“Then you’ll know what it’s like when a glass suddenly isn’t yours anymore.”
And I left.
The next morning she was gone. A couple of days later the news: “Presumably left abroad.” No one saw her again.
And I looked in the mirror and realized: the old me was gone.
Now I was power. A shadow among shadows. A predator they wanted to destroy — but failed.
I felt power. Almost divine. No one could stop me. The very network I entered accepted me — even feared me.
I began to control fates like chess pieces. One call could destroy or protect. People spoke of me by other names. My past was turning into a legend.
But one day I received an envelope without an address. Inside — a photo. Of me. Taken in the house. I was sleeping on the couch. Someone was near. And a note. Just three words:
“You are not the first.”
At that moment everything collapsed. I realized: behind this whole network, manipulations, even “M.O.” stands someone else. Someone who watched while we thought everything was under control. Someone who has long looked down from above.
I tried to find “M.O.,” but he disappeared. The network began to collapse. People vanished. As if someone was wiping the traces. Only I remained. Maybe because I was needed.
Every night I feel someone’s gaze. Phone calls without words. Reflections in mirrors that don’t move with me. It’s not paranoia — it’s a signal.
I won my game… but became part of another — older, more dangerous.
Now I live differently. Without a name. Without a past.
And I wait.
Because one day they will come for me.
Or maybe they are already here.
