"To ruin me. They've got my trial strategy notes, my personal opinion of my clients, their personal information. If this goes public, I'm ruined. My reputation… gone in an instant. And as for who, there is someone. Someone who'd love to get their revenge."

I didn't want to know the answer, I didn't want to know what Adam had done that would cause this level of a reaction, but I still asked the question in a fearful whisper. "What did you do?"

Adam was immediately on the defensive. "This isn't my fault!"

"You said 'Someone who'd love to get their revenge'," I still spoke in a low tone, but with a laser-focused authority that Adam could not ignore, "so I'll ask again, what did you do?"

"It's nothing really," Adam's replied flippantly, "you could say he brought it on himself."

My patience had worn thin. "Spit it out, Adam, who are you talking about?"

"Who do you think?" He threw his hands in the air and shook his head as if this simple act could deny the truth of the situation he had found himself in. "Damon!"

"What did you do to him?"

"Me? What did I–? He's the one that did something. To me! Let's not forget that fact. It was him. And Sarah. They're the ones in the wrong here. Not me."

I didn't ask him again, I merely looked my command and waited for him to continue.

"I did what any husband would do."

"Which is?"

"I created a situation where it was in Damon's best interests to leave town."

"What does that even mean?"

"He's a criminal, you do know that, don't you?"

"I know."

"Good, because sometimes I feel like I'm the one that's treated like the criminal around here. The bad guy trying to mess up Sarah and Damon's little love story."

"Can we please get back to this little revenge story?"

"Well," Adam, a lawyer to the last, searched for the words that would present himself in the best light, and Damon in the worst, "criminals tend to make enemies, right? Dangerous enemies. I simply made sure that one of those enemies knew where to go looking for him. To settle their… business differences. And then I made sure that Damon knew who it was that was coming for him. It was him that decided it was prudent for him to leave town. As fast as he could."

"Or?"

"What do you mean?"

"What was the alternative? What would've happened to him if he'd stayed?"

Adam shrugged. "I don't know."

"You know."

"I suppose that man, that business associate, he, umm… he would've got rid of him. Killed him. It's what that type do."

"That type? You mean, like you? Your type?"

"No, not me! What else was I supposed to do? He slept with my wife!"

"A terrible crime that," I couldn't hold back the sarcasm, Adam's hypocrisy was so far off the charts, "sleeping with another man's wife. You'd never do that, would you, Adam? A crime so terrible, so unforgivable, that it deserves a death sentence."

"I, umm…"

"I've met men like you before. Men whose jealousy burned with such fury they did things much more terrible than anything that had ever been done to them."

"I'm not like them."

"I was married to one of those men," I continued, the full horror of the potential chain of events that Adam had started fully dawning on me, "a man who decided that the punishment for my crime of cheating on him was murder. Only, unlike you, he was successful. A son, a brother, a husband, a father, taken from this world forever because one man couldn't control his jealousy."

But Adam couldn't see it, not yet; he couldn't understand the devastation his actions could have caused. "I didn't do anything to Damon, not really, all I did was have a conversation."

"Tony never did anything either," I shrugged, "all he did was have a conversation, hand over some money, point out his target. He outsourced his dirty work, just like you did. And just like he was guilty of Liam's murder, you would've been guilty of Damon's murder if your plan had worked."

Finally, I saw the change on Adam's face that I had been waiting for, hoping for, the realisation that he had been standing on a precipice, that only luck had spared him from becoming a killer. He leaned forward, winded, as if he had been punched in the gut. "Oh god," he gasped, declaring with desperation as he looked up at me, "I'm not like that, I'm not, am I? I didn't mean– You know, Carla, you know what it's like to be cheated on, you know how that feels."

"Yeah, I do. I know that feeling like someone has reached inside your chest and torn apart your insides, ripped your heart out. I know that feeling of wanting to drag a backstabbing little bitch up and down the street, to tear her hair out, to leave her lying in the gutter. That feeling where all you want to do is scream, and to cry, and yes, even to end them, to wipe them off the face of the earth. Those first moments after finding out, those are the moments you struggle to control that rage, when you scare yourself with knowing what you might be capable of. But that passes. And you do control yourself. You certainly don't make plans, you don't plot, you don't act as judge, jury and executioner."

"Tell me then, what do you do?"

"You yell, you cry, you call your cheating husband – wife in your case – every name under the sun. Then you drink, a lot, snog someone you really shouldn't, drink some more. Then you hold it together, because falling apart is not an option. Then you rebuild your life, without the cheater in it. Even if they get on their knees and beg you to come back to them, you stay strong, it doesn't matter if inside you're falling apart, you cling to whatever dignity you've got left. You move on with your life. And every day it gets a little bit easier. Because you're not letting what they did, their betrayal, turn you into a bitter, vengeful, ugly person."

"Is that what you think of me? Bitter, vengeful, ugly."

"I don't know, baby, you tell me. What were you thinking?"

"I, I don't know, I… I was hurt and humiliated, and I wanted to hurt him. I didn't want to kill him. I, oh god, I didn't think, I just– I had to do something. Anything. I had to. I couldn't just take it, could I?"

"Did you really want him dead?"

"No." It was a weak 'no', an undecided 'no' at first, but as the reality of what Damon's death would mean for him, for his conscience, his soul, he repeated, decidedly this time: "No. I didn't want him dead. I wanted him gone and that, doing what I did, it was the only way I could think of. I had to get rid of him– not like that! I couldn't let him win."

"I get it, your ego was bruised."

"Maybe. Yeah. Not so much that I wanted him dead, not really. It was leverage, you know, to get him to leave town. I didn't want him dead, I didn't. You have to believe me, Carla. You do believe me, don't you?"

I searched his eyes for the truth, and I thought back to every moment I'd spent with him, the good and the bad. I put these things together in my mind and I knew the right answer. "I believe you."

There was only enough time for me to register the relief on Adam's face when a short rap on the door was followed by Sarah appearing with a reminder.

"Carla, we need to get going or we'll be late for the Devlin meeting."

"One minute, Sarah."

"You know what traffic's like this time of day."

I snapped. "Sarah!"

"Fine, I'll wait by the car."

I waited until Sarah had left the office and fully closed the door; the last thing Adam and I needed was for Sarah to know what was going on. We looked at each other, an unanswerable question hanging in the air. But there wasn't time to figure it out, not now. I had no choice but to declare: "I have to go."

"What am I gonna do?"

"You are going to do nothing. I mean it, Adam, do nothing until we come up with a plan. Do not speak to Damon. If you see him on the street, cross to the other side and keep on walking. Do you understand?"

"You said we, that we'd come up with a plan."

I was getting exasperated by this point. "And?"

"I just like the word we, that's all." Despite the seriousness of his current situation, Adam couldn't help but smile at the language I'd used, the assumption that we would work together, as a team.

"As if I would make you face this on your own," I said, returning his smile, before jokingly adding, "can't have you trying to organise another hit job now, can we. Sorry," I quickly apologised after seeing the look of horror on Adam's face, "I'm joking, I'm joking." I kissed him softly, an affirmation of my contrition, and he pulled me to him, his hands on my hips, drawing me in close. "No, no," I muttered, pulling away from his increasingly insistent kisses, "I need to go."

"Five minutes."

"And risk Sarah bursting in on us, no thanks."

With a reluctant groan, he released me from his embrace and I gathered up my things – my coat, my bag, the file of figures I'd prepared for the meeting – and turned to leave.

"What are you going to do while I'm at this meeting?" I asked him, a trick question I knew, but I had to make sure he understood the stakes.

"Nothing?"

"Good man. Actually, you can do something: send me that phone number, the one that sent you the photo."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you later. Now go and do something lawyer-ey while I'm gone. And–" I grabbed his hand and gave it what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze, "don't worry, we'll figure this out, together."