Five days later, the detention center door opened.
I walked out carrying a plastic bag containing my phone, keys, and wallet.
Elliot was waiting outside.
He wore the same dark coat he used for important tournaments. His face looked exhausted, and there were faint shadows beneath his eyes.
When he saw me, he stepped forward.
“Claire.”
I walked past him.
He caught my arm.
“Your father is stable.”
I stopped.
Not because of him.
Because of those four words.
“The surgery?”
“It went well. I arranged everything.”
I pulled my arm free.
“Thank you.”
Elliot frowned.
Perhaps he expected anger.
Perhaps tears.
Instead, I took an envelope from my bag.
“I want a divorce.”
For several seconds, he simply stared at me.
Then his expression hardened.
“You’ve just spent five days detained. You’re emotional.”
“No.”
“You’re angry about Camila.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“Then what?”
I looked directly into his eyes.
“I’m divorcing you because when you had to choose between telling the truth and protecting her, you lied.”
His face changed slightly.
“I did what was necessary.”
“For her.”
“She had a national qualifying match.”
I almost laughed.
“And I had a hospitalized father.”
Silence.
There it was again.
That silence.
The silence of a man who always had reasons for hurting me but never an apology.
I handed him the divorce agreement.
“Sign it.”
He didn’t take it.
“Claire, don’t make a permanent decision because of one incident.”
“One incident?”
I stared at him.
“You think these five days destroyed our marriage?”
I shook my head.
“No, Elliot. They only made me stop pretending it wasn’t already destroyed.”
I placed the envelope against his chest.
Then I walked away.
This time, he didn’t follow.
My father’s hospital room was on the eighth floor.
When I entered, he was asleep.
My mother sat beside him.
The moment she saw me, she began crying.
I hadn’t cried once during detention.
But when my mother hugged me, something inside me finally broke.
“Mom…”
She stroked my hair.
“You foolish child. Why didn’t you tell us things had become this bad?”
I couldn’t answer.
After a while, my father woke.
He looked weaker than I remembered.
But his first words were:
“Did they hurt you?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
He looked at my bruised cheek.
Then he sighed.
“Your mother told me what happened.”
“Dad, don’t worry about it.”
“I am worried.”
His voice became unexpectedly firm.
“Because your husband lied.”
I froze.
“How do you know?”
My father looked toward my mother.
She opened the bedside drawer.
Inside was a small black device.
A security camera.
I stared at it.
“What is that?”
“Your father bought it for the shop,” Mom said.
My heartbeat accelerated.
“But it wasn’t installed.”
“It wasn’t installed properly.”
My father smiled weakly.
“I tested it the day before your reopening.”
I stepped closer.
“What do you mean?”
“I mounted it temporarily above the old menu board. I wanted to see whether the angle covered the register before drilling holes.”
My hands began trembling.
“Was it recording?”
My father nodded.
“The whole time.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
The police.
Camila.
Elliot’s testimony.
Five days behind a locked door.
All because everyone believed there was no camera.
“Where’s the memory card?”
My mother’s expression changed.
“Missing.”
My heart sank.
“What?”
“When I remembered the camera, I asked your cousin to retrieve it. The camera was still there.”
She held up the device.
“But the card had been removed.”
I felt cold.
“Who knew about it?”
“Your father. Me.”
She hesitated.
“And Elliot.”
I slowly turned toward her.
“Elliot knew?”
“He helped your father test it.”
Something inside me dropped.
Maybe Elliot hadn’t simply lied because he trusted Camila.
Maybe he had known evidence existed.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice spoke.
“Mrs. Warren?”
“Yes.”
“This is Officer Miller from the station. We need you to come in.”
My pulse quickened.
“Why?”
“We’ve received new evidence concerning the incident at your shop.”
I looked at my parents.
“What evidence?”
“A video.”
Thirty minutes later, I was back at the police station.
But this time, I wasn’t sitting on the metal bench as a detainee.
Officer Miller placed a laptop in front of me.
“We received this anonymously this morning.”
He pressed play.
The image was grainy but clear enough.
My shop.
Camila entered.
She looked around.
Then she opened her handbag.
My breath stopped.
She removed something with a tissue.
A fly.
She dropped it into her soy milk.
Seconds later, she called me over.
The argument began.
Then came the moment she claimed I attacked her.
The video showed everything.
Camila grabbed my wrist first.
I pushed her away.
She stumbled against the counter.
Then she slapped me.
I didn’t attack her.
I defended myself.
But that wasn’t the part that made my blood run cold.
Officer Miller moved the recording backward.
“Watch the window.”
Across the street stood a familiar figure.
Elliot.
He really had been there.
My heart pounded.
For one irrational second, I wondered whether I had misunderstood everything.
Then Officer Miller continued the video.
Elliot crossed the road after Camila left.
He entered my shop.
I had already been taken outside by another officer.
Elliot looked around.
Then he walked directly toward the camera.
He reached up.
And removed the memory card.
My fingers went numb.
The room became completely silent.
Officer Miller looked at me.
“Your husband’s original statement wasn’t simply inaccurate.”
“He knew.”
My voice barely came out.
“He knew exactly what happened.”
“Yes.”
“Then why would he send the video now?”
“He didn’t.”
I turned.
Officer Miller closed the laptop.
“The anonymous sender provided a copy. Apparently, someone duplicated the footage before the memory card disappeared.”
“Who?”
“We’re investigating.”
At that moment, the station door opened.
Camila walked in.
She wasn’t crying anymore.
Two officers accompanied her.
And behind them—
Elliot.
Our eyes met.
For the first time, I saw fear on his face.
Camila immediately grabbed his sleeve.
“Professor Warren, you promised me!”
Every person nearby went silent.
Elliot’s face turned white.
“Camila.”
“You said the recording was gone!”
My stomach twisted.
She realized too late what she had said.
Officer Miller stood.
“What recording, Miss Grant?”
Camila froze.
Elliot closed his eyes.
And suddenly, I understood.
This hadn’t been an impulsive lie at the police station.
They had discussed the camera.
They had removed the evidence.
And Elliot had watched me spend five days in detention knowing I was innocent.
I walked toward him.
He whispered:
“Claire, I can explain.”
I looked at the man I had loved for ten years.
“No.”
His eyes reddened.
“Please.”
“You had five days.”
He reached toward me.
I stepped back.
“You had five entire days to tell the truth.”
His hand fell.
Officer Miller asked Elliot to remain for questioning.
I turned to leave.
Then Camila shouted behind me:
“He didn’t do it because he loves me!”
I stopped.
She was crying now.
“He did it because of your father!”
I slowly turned around.
Elliot’s expression changed instantly.
“Camila, shut up.”
But she laughed hysterically.
“You still won’t tell her?”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Tell me what?”
Elliot said nothing.
Camila looked directly at me.
“The night before the incident, your husband received your father’s medical report.”
I frowned.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“He discovered something in it.”
Elliot stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
“No!”
Camila pulled away from him.
“You ruined my life to protect her, and she still thinks you chose me!”
My mind went blank.
Protect me?
Elliot had let me spend five days detained.
“What are you talking about?”
Camila pointed at him.
“Ask your husband why your father’s hospital bills suddenly disappeared.”
I looked at Elliot.
Then I remembered.
He had arranged the nurse.
The specialist.
The surgery.
Everything.
“Elliot?”
His face had become terrifyingly pale.
“What did you find?”
He remained silent.
Officer Miller frowned.
“Mr. Warren?”
Finally, Elliot looked at me.
And what I saw in his eyes wasn’t indifference.
It was dread.
“Claire…”
His voice broke.
“Your father’s illness wasn’t natural.”
The air seemed to disappear from the room.
I stared at him.
“What?”
Elliot swallowed.
“Someone has been poisoning him.”
My knees almost gave way.
“That isn’t possible.”
“I thought so too.”
He took a folded document from inside his coat.
A toxicology report.
There was a name circled near the bottom.
A chemical compound I didn’t recognize.
But beneath it was something I did recognize.
Chronic exposure through contaminated food products.
My mouth went dry.
My parents had run a soy breakfast shop for twenty years.
And suddenly I remembered something else.
Camila had been visiting our shop for months before the fight.
Always ordering the same thing.
Always asking questions about where we bought our ingredients.
I looked at her.
She backed away.
“No.”
Elliot stepped between us.
“Claire, listen carefully.”
His voice was shaking now.
“The fly wasn’t the reason Camila came to your shop that morning.”
He turned toward his favorite student.
“She was looking for something.”
Camila’s face drained of color.
“What?”
I whispered.
Elliot looked at me.
“A ledger your father hid somewhere inside Soya Chen.”
And before anyone could ask another question, my phone rang.
It was my mother.
I answered immediately.
“Mom?”
She was sobbing.
“Claire, come back to the hospital.”
My blood turned cold.
“What happened?”
“Your father’s room was searched.”
A pause.
“And someone left a Go stone on his pillow.”
I stopped breathing.
“A Go stone?”
“Yes.”
“Black or white?”
My mother’s answer made Elliot close his eyes.
“Black.”
I slowly looked at my husband.
Because in the Go Association, there was only one person I knew who always signed private challenges with a single black stone.
Elliot’s former teacher.
The man who had disappeared from professional Go twelve years earlier.
And the man whose name was written on the first page of my father’s old business ledger.
