For a moment, I couldn’t move. Rebecca gave me a small, tired nod, as if she understood exactly how impossible this felt. She told me she had not died, despite what Adrian—then calling himself Elias—had allowed people to believe. After her son was born, the control became constant. He monitored her spending, screened her calls, and gradually pushed every friend and relative out of reach. When she finally threatened divorce, he panicked. He forged signatures, moved assets, and tried to position her as emotionally unstable so no one would trust her version of events. With the help of a trusted friend and a legal advocate, she barely escaped with her son. To disappear from him completely, she had let her old life vanish too.
“He needs marriage,” Rebecca said quietly. “Not love. Marriage gives him access, legitimacy, sympathy, and time. A pregnant woman is at her most vulnerable, and he uses it to dupe them.” I felt sick because every word fit too neatly. Adrian had encouraged me to leave my job during fertility treatment. He had insisted that stress was bad for the baby. He had framed dependence as care.
Then Rebecca told me how it had taken her years to track him down under his new alias and get in touch with Dr. Shah. She gave me her understanding of him. “ He narrows down on women who are kind and naive,” he had said. “Someone grieving. Someone with something to inherit.” Claire looked at me across the table. Neither of us had to say it aloud. My dad had died only a year before I met him. Adrian had chosen me long before I thought I had chosen him.