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Niall called thirty-six hours later. "I'm in. But we do this carefully, and we do it right. No half measures."

They met at his apartment the next morning. He presented her with a flash drive containing everything. Three drafts of Dave's manuscript. Email chains between Dave and the publisher. Editorial notes showing how they'd shaped the narrative to make Isabelle more unsympathetic.

Elly spent the next week reading through it all.

With each document, her rage crystallized into something harder. More focused.

This wasn't just theft. It was systematic character assassination, carefully crafted to protect Dave while destroying her.

"We need to write this like a legal brief," Niall said one evening as they worked in his apartment. "Every claim backed by evidence. Every accusation supported by documentation. We make it impossible to deny."

They fell into a rhythm. Elly wrote sections recounting the real story behind each scene in the novel. Niall provided documentary evidence. They worked late into the night, ordering takeout and drinking coffee until they were both jittery and exhausted.

The exposé began to take shape.

Part memoir, part investigative journalism, part literary criticism. Elly reclaimed her narrative, showing the real relationship behind the fiction. She included screenshots of their original text exchanges placed side by side with passages from the novel.

The similarities were damning.

"This chapter about the breakup," Niall said, reading over her shoulder. "You make him sound like a sociopath."

"He is a sociopath. He stole my grief and sold it for profit."

"I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying we need to be careful about libel. Stick to what you can prove."

Elly revised the section, tempering her anger with precision.

Niall was right. This needed to be unassailable. They couldn't give Dave any room to claim defamation.

As the weeks passed, something unexpected happened.

The professional alliance began shifting into something more personal. They started having conversations unrelated to the exposé. Niall told her about his childhood in Dublin, about the father who never thought editing was a real job. Elly told him about her own writing, the novel she'd been working on before Dave stole her voice.

One night, after a particularly difficult section about Dave's infidelity, Elly broke down.

She hadn't cried about any of this in months, but reading through the evidence brought everything back. Niall held her while she sobbed. When she finally pulled away, there was something in his eyes that hadn't been there before.

"I should go," she said.

"You don't have to."

But she did.

Because this was getting complicated, and she couldn't afford complicated. Not yet.

Still, the line between revenge and reality was blurring. She found herself looking forward to their work sessions, enjoying his company beyond what the plan required. He was smart and funny and surprisingly vulnerable when he let his guard down.

Under different circumstances, she might have actually fallen for him.

But she reminded herself why she was here.

This was about justice, not romance.

"We're almost done with the first draft," Niall said one evening, reviewing their outline. "Another two weeks and we'll have something ready to show publishers."

"You think someone will actually publish this?"

"Are you kidding? This is explosive. Every publisher in New York will want it." He paused. "Though we need to talk about timing. If we release this too early, Dave's lawyers will tie it up in court for years. We need to be strategic."

"What do you suggest?"

"We leak something small first. Get people questioning the novel's authenticity. Then, when speculation's at its peak, we drop the exposé." Niall pulled up a document on his laptop. "I've been thinking about this. There's a literary gossip blog called Spine. They love scandals. If we feed them an anonymous tip questioning Dave's originality, they'll run with it."

"And you think that'll work?"

"I think it'll make Dave defensive. When people get defensive, they make mistakes." Niall looked at her. "But I need to know you're ready for this. Once we start, there's no going back. Your life will become public property. Everyone will have an opinion about you, about us, about what we're doing."

Elly thought about the past year. Watching Dave accept awards and praise for work that wasn't his. Every interview where he played the victim. Every review that called Isabelle manipulative and unstable.

"I'm ready," she said. "Let's burn it all down."

Niall smiled, but there was something in his expression she couldn't quite read.

"Then we start tomorrow."

That night, as Elly walked home through the cold March air, she wondered if she'd made a mistake trusting him.

Something about his eagerness felt off.

Too controlled. Too calculated.

She pulled out her phone and opened the voice recording app. From now on, she'd record everything. Just in case.

At home, she couldn't shake the feeling that Niall was orchestrating something beyond what they'd discussed. His confidence about how events would unfold felt rehearsed. Like he'd already written this story in his head and was just waiting for everyone else to play their parts.

Elly opened her laptop and created a new document.

Not the exposé they were crafting together.

Something else. Something that would expose both men if necessary.

She started typing, compiling notes about Niall's behavior. The moments when his guilt seemed performative. The way he controlled every aspect of their plan.

Her phone lit up with a text from Niall.

Sleep well. Tomorrow we change everything.

Elly stared at the message.

Then she opened her email and searched for investigative journalists who covered literary ethics.

She found one at The Atlantic. Someone who'd written critically about autofiction and truth in literature.

She drafted an anonymous message.

I have information about Dave Maxell's novel "The Sound of Shattering" that you'll want to see. Are you interested?

Her finger hovered over send.

Insurance, she told herself. Just insurance.

She pressed send.

The journalist responded within minutes.

Very interested. Let's talk.