My brother set me up on a date with one of the guys he plays pickleball with every weekend. He described him as super polite, had a good job, and “has been single too long.” After a little push, I finally said yes. He picked me up with flowers. Dinner was genuinely great. He pulled out my chair, asked about my job, and didn’t interrupt me once. When I reached for my phone to call an Uber, he said, “No way. A gentleman drives his date home and watches her walk inside safely.” He opened the car door for me, drove me home, waited while I walked in, and I waved from the window. I went to bed thinking I’d finally met a decent man. That was until the next morning at 7:13 AM he sent me a text.
It wasn’t a sweet “Good morning,” or a casual “I had a great time.” It was a string of frantic messages, one after another, clearly not meant for me. My phone buzzed relentlessly on my nightstand, pulling me from a peaceful sleep. I picked it up, blurry-eyed, expecting a cute emoji or a lighthearted follow-up.
Instead, the first message read: “She suspects something. I couldn’t get the info.”
My brow furrowed. She? What info? I stared at the screen, a strange prickle of unease starting in my stomach. I assumed it was a wrong number at first, but then another message flashed.
“Your sister is smarter than you gave her credit for. We need a new plan.”
My sister? But I don’t have a sister. My eyes darted to the sender’s name. It was him. The guy from last night. My heart started to thud. What was happening? This had to be a mistake. A bizarre, confusing mistake.
Then the third message appeared. “It’s getting harder to pretend. She reminds me too much of…”
My breath hitched. Of what? Who? A cold dread started to spread. This wasn’t a wrong number. These messages were coming from him, directed at someone else. And they were talking about me. The puzzle pieces were starting to form a terrifying picture, but I couldn’t quite see the whole image yet.
The fourth message was a single word. Sarah.
My vision blurred. Sarah. SARAH. The name hit me like a physical blow. Sarah, my brother’s ex-fiancée. The woman he still talked about, the one who broke his heart, the one who disappeared without a trace almost five years ago. He’d never gotten over her. He said she’d just… left. No explanation. Just gone.
My blood ran cold. Why was he talking about Sarah? What did I remind him of? What plan? My mind raced, trying to find a logical explanation, but all I could hear was the frantic thumping of my own pulse. I scrolled up, desperately seeking context, needing to understand. The messages from him continued, each one a fresh stab of fear.
And then, there it was. Not a message from him, but a screenshot he’d accidentally included in the frantic series, clearly meant for him from someone else. It was a message bubble, clearly from another person.
The sender’s name on the screenshot was My Brother.
And the message itself… I felt the air leave my lungs. My entire world tilted. The room spun.
It read: “Just keep her busy. We need access to her accounts. Mom and Dad’s savings are almost gone. She’s the only one left with anything.”
I reread it. Again. And again. The words burned into my brain. My brother. The “decent man” from last night. Sarah. My parents’ missing money. ME.
The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering to the floor. Every single kind word, every thoughtful gesture from last night, replayed in my mind like a cruel parody. He wasn’t a decent man. He was an accomplice. And my brother, my own flesh and blood, had set me up. Not for love, not for companionship.
He set me up to be financially ruined.
My brother, who always looked out for me. My brother, who encouraged me to trust people. He was the one who put me in this position. He had orchestrated this. The emptiness inside me was a vast, terrifying abyss. The betrayal was so absolute, so complete, it stole my voice, stole my tears. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to breathe, trying to comprehend that the man who’d walked me to my door and waited safely until I waved from the window, was part of a plan to destroy me. And my own brother was the mastermind.
