Page 74 of Shattering

Vanessa smirked. "And it's not the first time. We met at a hotel in November when you were at that Liverpool conference..." She smiled, reliving something scandalous. "Now that was a fun night."

A hotel?

Cadi remembered that day.

What Vanessa didn't know was that she had cut her trip short and returned home early for Tomos's rugby game. She and Gray had gone together, watched, and come home.

Cold certainty settled in.

Vanessa was lying.

Fishing.

Cadi placed the file down and straightened, smoothing an invisible crease on her sleeve.

Vanessa scoffed. "Well? Nothing to say?"

Cadi smiled, slow and sharp. "You know," she mused, "when I was a kid, we lived in a council estate in Manchester. There was this girl—bigger than all of us. Loved ginger jokes. At first, it was just words. Then a push here, a shove there."

Vanessa blinked, thrown. "What does that—"

"My mum put me in kickboxing." Cadi's voice remained calm. "We kept out of her way. Until the day she made a comment about Ana's mum. She lost two teeth. The next day, her mothercame banging on our door—but funnily enough, Ana and I never saw her again."

She leaned forward, voice dropping an octave, her voice the sharpest of blades. "Don't mistake silence for weakness, darling."

Vanessa paled.

She recovered quickly, scoffing. "We'll see what Gray has to say."

Before she could react, Cadi picked up her phone and dialled.

Gray picked up on the first ring.

"Cadi?" His voice was sharp, alert.

"You're on speaker," she said evenly, cutting to the chase. "Vanessa says you weren't on call two nights ago. You know, last week, when you took emergency leave and swapped your shifts."

Vanessa's face barely hid her growing unease.

"She says you went out for drinks," Cadi continued, cool and detached. "Spent the night with her."

The room tensed under the weight of silence.

Then Gray's voice came through, quiet, lethal.

"What?"

Vanessa stiffened.

"She also says," Cadi went on, her voice smooth as glass, "that you're leaving me. And that the two of you are getting custody of Tomos."

Another beat.

Then Gray laughed.

But it wasn't amused.

"Vanessa." His voice was a blade honed to an edge. "What the hell are you talking about?"

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