1 The first thing I felt when I opened my eyes was the phantom sensation of my bones shattering against the pavement. That sickening, wet thud of my body hitting the concrete after a twelve-story drop. I could still hear Tyler’s voice, mocking and youthful, calling out from the window above: “See ya, old man.” Then, the smell of Audrey’s perfume hit me—expensive, floral, and suffocating. I was standing in our foyer in downtown Chicago. Audrey was standing in front of me, breathless, her hand gripped tightly around the handle of a massive, oversized hardshell suitcase. I realized then: I was back. I had been given a second chance at the day my life—my first life—had ended. Before I could even greet her, Audrey’s face hardened. She stepped between me and the luggage, her voice sharp with a rehearsed kind of panic. “Don’t touch this, Nate. Seriously. Stay away from it.” In my previous life, I had been the doting, trusting husband. I had assumed it was some sensitive equipment from the architectural firm where she was a senior partner. I hadn’t asked questions. I had just smiled and offered to make her dinner. I looked at that suitcase now. It was unnervingly large. I knew exactly what—who—was inside. Tyler, the twenty-two-year-old intern she had been sleeping with for months, was curled up in that dark space, stifling his laughter, waiting for the “thrill” of being smuggled into our home. My fingernails dug into my palms until they drew blood. I forced my face into a mask of mild curiosity, a gentle smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “Why not? It looks heavy. Let me help you get it into the den.” I reached out, my fingers grazing the cold plastic of the handle. Audrey shoved my hand away, her eyes flashing with a sudden, ugly impatience. “I said don’t touch it! Are you deaf?” she snapped. “It’s… it’s hazardous material. Bio-waste from the site. It’s highly toxic if it’s exposed to the air. If you breathe it in, you’re dead, Nate. I’m serious. I have to handle the disposal myself. Just leave it alone.” Hazardous material. A fitting description for the man inside. I let out a shaky breath, feigning a look of genuine terror. I recoiled, putting several feet of distance between myself and the suitcase. “Bio-waste? In the house? Audrey, why would you even bring something like that here? What if it leaks?” Seeing my fear, Audrey’s expression softened into a look of smug superiority. She loved it when I was small. When I was compliant. “Relax. I’ve got it under control,” she said, her voice dropping into a purr. “I’ll ‘take care’ of it later. Just stay out of my way.” She put a deliberate emphasis on take care, and then she did something that made my stomach turn: she playfully nudged the side of the suitcase with the toe of her designer heel. The suitcase wobbled. From within, I heard a faint, muffled rustle—the sound of someone trying desperately not to giggle. My blood turned to ice. They were treating me like a prop in their sick little game. A background character in their erotic thriller. “Well,” I said, my voice steady despite the roar in my ears. “Make sure you ‘take care’ of it thoroughly then.” Audrey let out a sharp, triumphant laugh—the first real smile she’d given me all day—and whistled a tune as she dragged the suitcase into her home office. That night, I lay in bed and waited. I slowed my breathing, mimicking the deep rhythm of sleep. Beside me, Audrey stirred. She crept out from under the duvet, her movements silent and practiced. She slipped out of the room, leaving the door ajar. A moment later, the light in the office flickered on. I got out of bed, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floor. I pressed myself against the hallway wall, inching closer to the office door. Through the sliver of light, I heard them. “God, finally,” Tyler’s voice complained. It was muffled but unmistakable. “I thought I was gonna suffocate in there.” “Oh, shut up,” Audrey giggled. “You’re the one who wanted the ‘forbidden thrill.’ Was it intense enough for you?” “It’ll be intense when you actually get over here,” he muttered. “I didn’t spend an hour in a box just to talk.” In my last life, I had walked into that room because I wanted a glass of water. I had seen the light, opened the door, and found them—naked, intertwined, laughing at me. When I had broken down, screaming and crying, Audrey hadn’t apologized. She had led me toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, pretending she wanted to “explain.” Then, with a cold, calculated shove, she had sent me over the ledge. Afterward, she had paid off a crooked psychiatrist to back up her claim that I was severely depressed. She told the world I jumped. She inherited everything and married Tyler three months later. I gripped the doorframe, the phantom pain of my broken neck flaring up again. I shook with a rage so violent I thought I might shatter. “You’re so much better at this than Nate,” Audrey’s voice drifted out, dripping with contempt. “The man is like a piece of wood. I have to beg him to even try anything new, and then he acts like he’s doing me a favor.” “If you hate him so much, why not just get rid of him? Use those meds you were talking about.” “I’ve been slipping them into his ‘organic’ supplements for six months,” Audrey sighed. “The idiot hasn’t suspected a thing, but he’s still walking around fine. I think the guy I bought them from online ripped me off. Besides, I read that they’re getting better at detecting those things in autopsies now. I’m not taking that risk.” My heart stopped. I looked back toward the kitchen, where my “customized” vitamins sat on the counter. She had told me they were high-end bio-hacking supplements from a boutique lab in Switzerland. I had always hated pills, so I usually just hid them in the trash, pretending to take them so she wouldn’t feel “unappreciated.” She hadn’t just been cheating. She had been a slow-motion executioner. “So when are you finally dumping him?” Tyler asked. “I’m tired of playing hide-and-seek.” “Soon,” she whispered. “I’ve got an appointment with a doctor tomorrow morning. He’s going to sign off on a paper trail of ‘depression’ for Nate. Once that’s in the system…” “And then?” “And then? Look at those windows, Tyler. The sill doesn’t even reach your knees. If a ‘depressed’ man happened to lose his balance while looking at the stars… well, it’s a tragedy, isn’t it?” Silence followed, and then the sound of them laughing together. My skin crawled. It hadn’t been a crime of passion. It wasn’t an accident born of being caught. She had planned to kill me all along. I had just walked into her trap a few hours early. I retreated to the bedroom and lay in the dark, my mind racing. She was going to the doctor at 7:30 AM. She would leave then, and she would likely try to get Tyler out of the house shortly after. I had no intention of letting that happen. Around 4:00 AM, Audrey’s heavy snoring signaled she was finally out. I got out of bed and went to work. I moved with a quiet, frantic energy. I went to the walk-in closet and began dragging out bags of clothes and shoes, piling them in the hallway. I stripped the sofa cushions and threw them into the center of the living room. I went to the kitchen and emptied the trash bins, the recycling, and the pantry. I scattered flour and cereal across the floor. I took the rotting produce from the fridge and mashed it into the carpet. Finally, I went to the office door. I ignored the suitcase, but I grabbed the heavy art books from the shelves and stacked them in the hallway, creating a literal barricade between the office and the front door. I looked at the chaos. Our pristine, million-dollar condo looked like a dumpster fire. I went downstairs to the building’s loading dock and grabbed two more bags of trash from the bins, bringing them up and emptying them right in the foyer. The stench of old coffee grounds and discarded seafood filled the air. I put on a face mask and sat in the middle of the mess. At 6:30 AM, the bedroom door opened. Audrey stepped out, still in her silk robe, and stopped dead. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Nate?! What the hell are you doing?!” she shrieked, clutching her throat. “What is this smell? Have you lost your mind?” I wiped fake sweat from my forehead, looking up at her with a dazed, manic grin. “I couldn’t sleep. I got hit with this sudden urge to deep clean, you know? A fresh start. But then I tripped and the trash bags broke, and then I realized the carpet was filthy underneath, so I had to pull everything out…” Audrey looked at the mountain of garbage blocking the path from the office to the front door. To get the suitcase out, she’d have to lift a hundred-plus pounds of “hazardous material” over chest-high piles of debris. She was five-foot-four and hadn’t lifted anything heavier than a Pilates ring in years. She checked her watch, her face twisting in fury. “You idiot! I have to leave in ten minutes! I can’t get my things out through this!” “I’m so sorry, honey,” I said, my voice dripping with feigned innocence. “I didn’t know you needed that suitcase today. Why don’t you stay and help me? We can have it all cleared by noon.” “I can’t!” she screamed. “The doctor—I mean, my meeting! I can’t be late!” She looked at the mess, then at the door, then at me. She was trapped by her own schedule. “Fine,” she hissed. “I’m going. I’m calling a private waste removal service right now. They better have this place spotless by the time I get back.” She whipped out her phone and dialed. “Yes, this is Audrey Rhodes. The Pinnacle, Unit 4202. I need an emergency junk removal. Everything on the floor needs to be hauled away and destroyed. No, I don’t want anything salvaged. It’s all contaminated. Just throw it in the incinerator. Fast.” I smiled behind my mask. Contaminated. Exactly. “Are you sure, babe?” I asked. “What about your ‘hazardous’ suitcase in the office? Should they leave that for you?” “No!” she barked, already grabbing her purse. “It’s the most dangerous thing in here! Tell them to take it first. Don’t let them open it, Nate. If they open it, the fumes will kill everyone in the hallway. Just tell them to toss it in the truck and crush it immediately. Do you hear me?” “I hear you loud and clear,” I whispered. Audrey slammed the door behind her, muttering about how she was married to a lunatic. I stood up and stripped off my gloves. The silence in the apartment was heavy. I walked over to the office door and leaned against the frame, staring at the hardshell suitcase. A rhythmic, low snoring was coming from inside. Tyler was still asleep. In my last life, Tyler had stood over my broken body and joked about my age. “Tyler,” I whispered to the suitcase. “You have no idea how quiet it’s about to get.” The doorbell rang. Two burly men from ‘City-Wide Disposal’ stood there, looking at the trash-strewn luxury condo with bewildered expressions. “Everything?” the lead guy asked. “The lady said ‘no exceptions.’” “Everything,” I confirmed. “Start with the office. There’s a large suitcase in there. My wife was very specific: it contains bio-hazardous waste. Do not open it. Do not tilt it. Just get it into the compactor and let the machine do the work. She’s terrified of the ‘leaks.’” The men nodded, looking slightly nervous. They went into the office and hoisted the suitcase. I followed them to the elevator. I watched as they wheeled it out to the curb where the giant, orange garbage truck was idling, its hydraulic press groaning. “Hey, this thing is heavy,” one of the workers shouted over the noise of the city. “You sure there’s no glass or anything?” “Just hazardous waste,” I said, leaning against the brick wall of the building. “My wife says it’s ‘toxic to the touch.’ Best to just let the ‘neutralization’ process begin.” They tossed the suitcase into the back. As the heavy steel blade of the compactor began to descend, I thought I heard a muffled, high-pitched yelp. It was lost instantly under the roar of the engine and the screech of crushing plastic. I walked back upstairs, cleaned the apartment until it sparkled, and then sat on the sofa with a glass of wine and a burner phone. I made one call to a private investigator I’d looked up the night before. At 9:00 AM, the door unlocked. Audrey walked in, a victorious smirk on her face. She probably had the “depression” diagnosis in her purse. “Is it gone?” she asked, not even looking at me. I took a slow sip of my Merlot. “The ‘big trouble’ you were worried about? Yeah, Audrey. It’s been thoroughly neutralized.”
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