Part 3

Part 3 – The Collapse of Trust

I don’t remember sitting down, but I must have, because suddenly the chair was under me and the room felt too far away to trust. “Project Bloom,” I repeated, like the words might rearrange themselves into something harmless if I said them enough times. Sherry didn’t interrupt. She just watched me the way you watch someone realize the floor they’re standing on isn’t real.

“They use people,” she said quietly. “Marriages. Families. Trauma bonds. They find weak points and build entire networks through them.”

I stared at the list again. My name wasn’t just included. It was highlighted.

“Why me?” I asked, though I already knew the answer forming in my head.

“Because you trusted her,” Sherry said. “And because you were predictable.”

A laugh almost escaped me, but it died halfway up my throat.

The word “predictable” hit harder than betrayal.

It meant I had been studied.

Engineered.

Back at the house, I could suddenly see it differently. The timing of Elena’s questions. The way Max always appeared at the exact moment tension entered our marriage. The casual normalization of boundaries being crossed, then rewritten.

It wasn’t chaos.

It was structure.

Sherry leaned forward slightly. “You need to decide something,” she said. “Right now. Are you going to burn this down quietly… or are you going to survive it?”

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Unknown number.

One message.

You shouldn’t have gone to Sherry.

My blood went cold.

Then another message followed immediately.

We’re already inside your life. You just stopped noticing.

My hand tightened around the phone.

Sherry saw my face change. “They know you came here,” she said.

A knock sounded at the front door.

Not soft.

Not hesitant.