Chapter 1Selling My Husband To His Stalkers

Year two of our secret marriage, and I somehow ended up infiltrating a private Telegram group dedicated to stalking my husband.

The chat was currently scrolling at breakneck speed: [$1,000 bounty for Wesley Kallan’s private flight itinerary tomorrow! Who has a plug?]

I lurked in the digital shadows for a good half hour, watching the frantic messages pile up. It was a hive of obsessive, borderline-feral fans whose sole purpose in life was tracking, photographing, and cornering the man I was married to.

Leaning back against the velvet cushions of my empty living room, I toggled over to my iMessage and held down the microphone button.

[Mr. A-List, which flight are you taking to New York tomorrow morning again?]

His reply came a minute later. [Delta 9527. Why? Finally willing to come to LAX and see your actual husband off?]

I copied the flight number and dropped it into the Telegram chat.

Sixty seconds later, a thousand dollars hit my Venmo.

* * *

[Bounty paid. Don't ghost us on the gate and seating area, you coward.]

The notification that popped up on my screen dripped with entitlement. The sender’s handle was StardustWes. She was the admin of this two-hundred-member stalker syndicate.

I stared at her profile picture—a girl in a bright red jacket—my thumb hovering over the glass.

[Guess our 'insider' is a one-trick pony. The nerve to charge for scraps.]

When I didn't reply immediately, the admin's texts turned venomous. The rest of the group swarmed like sharks smelling blood.

[Seriously. Take our money and run, hope you get hit by a bus.]

[Watch this be a burner account run by Wesley's pathetic, secret hag of a wife.]

[Ugh, don't make me puke. That old, washed-up bitch taking up space probably doesn't even get to see Wes's face. She's just a placeholder.]

[I heard she's some ugly corporate suit who trapped him into marriage with Hollywood studio money. Wes is just enduring it for his career.]

[Honestly, I pray she gets in a car crash so the spot opens up.]

I watched the words scroll past, a sharp, twisting ache taking root in my stomach.

Two years of marriage.

Outside these walls, Wesley Kallan was a blindingly bright superstar, a cinematic darling. Inside, I was a ghost. A woman who didn't even deserve a name. For the sake of his flawless trajectory, we had never taken a single public photo together.

And now, his deranged fans were casually wishing for my death in a group chat, and I couldn't even defend myself. If I fired back, my carefully constructed persona as an airport insider would shatter.

I took a slow, rattling breath, pressing down the tremor in my fingertips, and typed.

[Keep your hair on. Verifying the layout now.]

Switching apps, I opened Wesley's pinned contact. A black square for a profile picture.

Two years.

He flew to every corner of the earth while I guarded a sprawling, echoing mansion in the Hollywood Hills. He genuinely believed that sending a daily "landed" text and depositing an exorbitant allowance into my account constituted a marriage.

But I was starting to forget the physical temperature of his skin.

I copied the rest of the flight data and flipped back to Telegram.

[DL9527. First Class, Seat 2A.]

A new Venmo notification pinged.

[Good girl.]

The admin sent another thousand. I clicked 'Accept' with a blank face. The digital chime of the deposit sounded impossibly loud in the hollow silence of the house.

[Who's going to LAX tomorrow? Remember to get tight shots of his face.] The admin began delegating.

[Me! Me! I'm gonna try to rip off that cursed protection amulet that old witch gave him.]

[Yes! Shred it. Wes should only wear the jewelry we buy him.]

I stared at that sentence until the words blurred, a cold numbness seeping into my chest.

That amulet was a hand-carved grounding stone I had driven ten hours into the Arizona desert to get for him from a Navajo artisan, praying for his safety after a stunt went wrong on set. Wesley had worn it flush against his collarbone ever since.

Now, these girls were crowdsourcing a plan to destroy it.

My phone vibrated in my palm. A text from Wesley.

[Wheels up at 6:30 AM. If you can actually wake up that early, I'll have the driver swing by the house to get you.]

I stared at the glowing blue bubble for a long time. Then, very slowly, I typed:

[Too tired. Can't make it. Be safe.]

After it delivered, I placed the phone face down on the sofa and closed my eyes. In the suffocating dark, I could already picture the absolute chaos of the airport ambush waiting for him tomorrow.

I lost track of time, drifting in a numb haze, until the sudden chime of the front gate intercom shattered the silence.

I snapped my eyes open, looking at the digital clock on the mantle.

5:00 AM.

I walked over to the security monitor.

"Who is it?"

The screen was pitch black. No visual. But the voice that filtered through the speaker made my blood freeze in my veins.

"It's me."