He didn’t touch me, not in the way I feared. Instead, Charles served us both a drink, gestured for me to sit down, and spoke as if we were old friends trapped in a waiting room.

“I didn’t become Charles Harwood,” he began. “My name was Gregory Humes. I worked as a cosmetic surgeon in Los Angeles for almost 30 years. And a very good one, too.”

I sat rigidly in the chair facing him. I could barely see his face: how he  moved  , how he clung too tightly to inappropriate places. The glare of the lamp reflected the shine of the synthetic skin, glued on with clinical precision.

I made a fortune out of desperation. Actresses, executives, wives of senators… came to me to become other people. And I paid well.

He took a sip of bourbo. “But I became greedy. Too greedy.”

It turns out that Charles—or Gregory—had developed an illegal side business. Through experimental surgeries, facial reconstruction, and synthetic grafts, he helped criminals disappear, literally giving them  new faces  . He called it “erasure work.”

The FBI found out six years ago. They revoked his license. He faced 30 years in federal prison. But instead of serving his sentence, he reached an agreement.

He testified against high-profile clients—men who could exile governments—and in return, they gave him a new identity: Charles Harwood.

New name, new location and trust fund sufficiently large to maintain it secretly and occultly.

“But the irony,” he said, laughing bitterly, “is that I had to become my own patient.

The government paid another surgeon to reconstruct my face so I would disappear forever. They used one of my own designs. That’s why it doesn’t move well  . It’s not mine.

I asked him why he needed a wife.

He kept silent for a while. Finally he said: “Because money has its desires. The trust is fully activated only if I legally marry before sixty-three years. It is a clause that belonged to someone else, but I inherited it.”

I asked him why he chose me.

He looked me straight in the eyes. “Because you were desperate, and you said it sincerely. You pretended. You lied.”

I got up and left the room. He didn’t follow me.

The next morning, I found him in the garden, pruning rose bushes with latex needles. He was acting as if nothing had happened.

That became our patron. We lived like ghosts in that house. No intimacy. No discussions. Only silence and expensive wine.

But five weeks later, everything changed when I received a letter from a woman named Iris Caldwell. The sender was from Nevada.

The letter said:

You don’t know me, but I married Charles Harwood ten years ago. If you’re reading this, you’re in danger. He’s not who he says he is. He lied to me too. And I barely escaped with my life.

Iris’s letter shattered the fragile acceptance I had begun to build.

It was handwritten, each line scribbled forcefully, as if someone had forced the words onto the page.

He wrote about his wedding to Charles —the same mask, the same secrecy, the same heresy—, but ten years earlier, with a different name: Michael Desmod  .

He had told her the same story. Ex surgeon. Contract with the government. Hidden life.

“Use different aliases,” the letter said. “And every marriage is a betrayal. Mine ended after six months, when I decided to leave.”

Iris claimed to have discovered hidden records in a safe: documents that proved that Charles  had  testified.

Eп cambio, había fiпgido su propia desaparecióп tras ser viпcυlado coп al meпos tres musújeres desaparedas, todas pacieпtes de su supυclí de borraÿica.

The FBI file was sealed. But she had copied parts of it before her death.

“He’s not under witness protection,” she wrote. “He goes into hiding. And every woman he marries disappears.”

I confronted Charles that night.

He didn’t flinch when I showed him the letter.

“I was wondering when you’d hear about her,” he said, calmly placing a bookmark in his novel. “Iris is alive, yes. She ran away. She took one hundred thousand dollars and disappeared. A smart woman.”

I asked her if what she wrote was true.

He sighed and looked tired again. “A little.”

He admitted to the aliases, the false identity. But the women?

“They weren’t victims,” ​​he said coldly. “They were  partners  . We had agreements. And some couldn’t keep their end of the bargain.”

I asked them what happened.

He did not respond.

That night, I searched his studio. I found a floorboard that gave way under pressure. Underneath it, a safe. Inside were IDs—driver’s licenses, passports, credit cards—all belonging to women. Five names. Five faces.

And a scalpel.

The next morning, I packed my suitcase and tried to leave. The gates of the housing development were closed. The conductor wasn’t there. My phone had no signal.

Charles greeted me in the lobby.

“You broke the contract,” he said simply.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t hit. He just seemed… disappointed.

But I had already anticipated this. I had sent photos of the identifications to a friend in Charleston, with the promise to forward them to the police if I didn’t turn myself in within 48 hours.

Charles looked at me intently when I told him.

Eпtoпces, iпesperadameпte,  soпrió  . «Qυé iпgeпioso, Leah».

I left the factory that afternoon. There was a car waiting for me.

Two weeks later, federal agents raided the property. Charles Harwood—or Gregory, or Michael, or whatever his real name was—had disappeared. The house was empty the night I left.

Nυпca lo eпsoptraroп.

But sometimes, I still receive letters. Yes, return address. Just a white envelope, and inside, a pressed rose. Always with the same address:

“Well played.”