Daniel gripped the doorframe as if the room were moving beneath his feet.

His face had lost all color.

“Valeria…”

I set the glass of milk on the windowsill.

“What happened?”

He swallowed hard.

“Sofia is gone.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Gone where?”

“I don’t know.”

His voice cracked.

“She left her suitcase. Her phone is here. But she’s not in the guest room.”

I looked at him calmly.

“Maybe check the balcony.”

He stared at me.

“How did you—”

Then he stopped.

Because he remembered the cameras.

We both did.

He ran from the room.

I opened the camera application.

At 5:48 a.m., Sofia had stepped into the hallway.

She was fully dressed.

No panic.

No tears.

She walked into the kitchen carrying something wrapped in a white towel.

Two minutes later, she returned to the guest room.

At 5:56, she appeared again.

This time, she walked toward the small service balcony at the end of the corridor.

She never came back.

Daniel shouted her name from the other side of the apartment.

Then I heard another sound.

A heavy thud.

I stood and walked into the hallway.

Daniel was on the floor.

Conscious, but trembling so badly that he could barely push himself upright.

“Call an ambulance,” he whispered.

I did.

Not because I had forgiven him.

Because whatever he had done, I wasn’t going to gamble with someone’s life.

At the hospital, Daniel was taken inside for evaluation.

I remained in the waiting area.

Thirty minutes later, a nurse approached me.

“Are you his wife?”

“Legally, yes.”

The word tasted strange.

She asked basic questions about medications, allergies, recent illnesses.

Then she said something that made me look up.

“He told the doctor he may have taken medication that wasn’t prescribed to him.”

I frowned.

“What medication?”

“We’re still clarifying that.”

My mind immediately returned to Sofia carrying the white towel.

Daniel had always been healthy.

He avoided even painkillers unless absolutely necessary.

So why would he suddenly take someone else’s medication?

An hour later, I saw Sofia.

She walked into the hospital wearing sunglasses and the same oversized sweater from the night before.

She froze when she noticed me.

Then she lowered her head.

“Where’s Daniel?”

I stood.

“You tell me.”

Her face tightened.

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do.”

I showed her my phone.

Not the guest-room door.

The kitchen footage.

Her carrying the towel.

Her opening the cabinet.

Her standing beside Daniel’s usual water glass.

For the first time since she entered my house, Sofia stopped performing.

No trembling voice.

No fragile expression.

Just silence.

“What did you put there?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you scared?”

“I’m not.”

“You disappeared before sunrise without your phone.”

She clenched her jaw.

“I went downstairs for air.”

“Through the service balcony?”

Her eyes flickered.

That was enough.

Before she could answer, Daniel’s mother rushed into the waiting room.

“What happened to my son?”

Then she saw Sofia.

Her expression changed completely.

Not concern.

Recognition.

“You.”

Sofia stepped backward.

Daniel’s mother pointed at her.

“What are you doing here?”

I looked between them.

“You two know each other?”

Neither answered.

That silence was louder than any confession.

Daniel’s mother grabbed my arm.

“Valeria, listen to me carefully. That woman was never just Daniel’s university friend.”

Sofia’s face went white.

“Mrs. Pei, don’t.”

But the older woman continued.

“Years ago, Daniel almost married her.”

My stomach went cold.

Daniel had told me Sofia was like a sister.

His mother kept speaking.

“They broke up before you met him. Daniel swore it was finished. He said he only helped her because he felt guilty.”

“Guilty for what?”

Mrs. Pei looked at Sofia.

Sofia looked away.

Then a doctor emerged.

“Mrs. Pei?”

I stepped forward.

“How is he?”

“He’s stable.”

Relief passed through me despite everything.

Then the doctor added:

“But we found something concerning in his bloodwork.”

Sofia suddenly turned toward the exit.

Two hospital security officers were already entering through the doors.

The doctor continued.

“This does not appear to be related to ordinary contact with a person living with HIV. We are investigating possible medication exposure.”

Sofia stopped walking.

I looked directly at her.

For weeks, maybe months, Daniel had used her diagnosis to make me feel cruel for questioning their relationship.

But the real danger had never been sharing a house.

It was the secrets they had brought into it.

Daniel’s phone, which I had taken from his jacket before the ambulance arrived, suddenly vibrated in my hand.

A message appeared from an unknown number.

“Did he drink it?”

Another message followed.

“Sofia, delete everything before his wife finds out.”

My fingers went numb.

Mrs. Pei saw the screen.

“Oh my God.”

Then a third message appeared.

This one contained an image.

A scanned document.

At the top was Daniel’s name.

Below it was Sofia’s.

And beside both names was a date from six years earlier.

Two years before Daniel and I had even met.

At the bottom of the document was one line that made every conversation, every late-night emergency, and every whispered excuse suddenly look different.

“Confidential settlement agreement.”

I lifted my eyes toward Sofia.

“What did Daniel pay you to keep quiet about?”

For the first time, she looked genuinely terrified.

And from behind the hospital doors, Daniel screamed my name.