It looks like budgeting.

It looks like a careful husband and a supportive wife.

It took me three years and a forgotten video call to see the shape of the cage, and only because he finally got careless enough to let me see how the other half of the household lived.

Chapter 6 — Her Apartment

“And Selina’s apartment?” I asked.

Barrett went still.

It was the stillness of a man who has just realized the conversation has walked somewhere he cannot follow safely, and that silence told me more than a confession would have.

“How much do you pay for it?”