# Chapter 57: The Perfect Lie and the Real Bullet
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 57 of *The Housemaid’s Secret* — a chapter that is dark, tense, and absolutely jaw-dropping. We are deep inside Wendy’s twisted mind now, and trust me, nothing is what it seems. So take a breath, hold onto something, and let’s step into the night Douglas was murdered.
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Wendy stands in front of the bathroom mirror, studying her reflection like a painter inspecting a masterpiece. She has transformed herself into a battered, terrified wife — the kind of woman who has suffered at the hands of a violent husband. Every bruise, every shadow, every sad line on her face has been carefully painted on. But when she tilts her chin and looks closer, she knows something is missing.
It’s almost perfect. Almost. But not quite.
Russell, playing the role of Douglas, has been absolutely flawless since Millie arrived. His looks, his charm, his natural charisma — combined with Douglas’s wealth and power — make him the ideal man. Wendy tells him the disguise looks perfect, but she shakes her head. Perfect isn’t good enough. If Millie suspects for one second that the bruises are makeup, then everything falls apart.
“You have to punch me,” she says.
Russell laughs. He thinks she’s joking. But the smile slides off his face when he realizes Wendy is completely serious. She needs a split lip. She needs real blood. She needs the kind of damage that no makeup kit in the world can fake. And there’s only one way to get it.
He refuses. Horrified, he backs away. “I’m not punching you in the face.”
But Wendy doesn’t back down. She has invested everything in this plan — her savings, her jewelry money, even the money meant to pay Millie’s generous salary. She has bought a dress she wants the police to think Douglas gave Millie. She has bought an expensive engraved bracelet. She has hauled enough cleaning supplies into the apartment to make every doorman believe she has terrible allergies, just so no one will catch Millie carrying floor cleaner and furniture polish.
The money is running out. Time is running out. Wendy needs this plan to work now.
So she goes for the one thing she knows will break Russell: his pride.
“You’re pathetic,” she spits. “I can’t believe you won’t do this little thing for me. We have a chance to strike it rich, and here you are, screwing it up.”
Russell’s jaw tightens. She doesn’t stop.
“No wonder you’re in your forties and you’re nothing but a furniture salesman. Pathetic.”
His right hand balls into a fist. She knows he’s sensitive about his career. He always dreamed of being a successful businessman, and managing a floundering antique furniture store is a long way from that dream. Wendy could make him so much more — she could turn him into the man he wants to be. The man he deserves to be.
He just needs to hit her.
“You’re such a loser,” she continues, her voice dripping with venom. “What are you going to do when the store goes belly up? Get a job at McDonald’s, salting French fries?”
“Enough! Stop it!”
“You want me to stop? Then hit me!”
The next thing Wendy knows, pain explodes across the left side of her face. She gasps, stumbles backward, and catches herself on the towel rack. For a second, she’s seeing stars. Russell’s anguished cry breaks through the haze: “Wendy! Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry!”
He looks like he’s about to burst into tears. But his guilt doesn’t matter. What matters is her face. When Wendy touches her nose, blood is streaming down her lips and chin. Russell panics and grabs paper towels. She presses them to her face, waiting for the flow to stop. It does. Mostly.
The bathroom is a disaster. Blood drips across the floor, and there’s a bloody handprint on the edge of the sink where she gripped it while trying to stop the bleeding.
Oh my God. It’s perfect.
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**Ep 7: Kill the Bastard — The Night Douglas Was Murdered**
The gears in the elevator grind painfully as it climbs. Douglas is home.
This is the moment. The moment she and Russell have spent months building toward. Millie left the apartment an hour ago — shaking, terrified, convinced she just murdered Wendy’s husband. The police will question her. She will break, and she will confess. Wendy has planted careful evidence to make them believe Millie did it because she was having an affair with Douglas. And Wendy herself? She cannot afford to be involved.
Now there is only one piece left of the puzzle.
They must kill Douglas for real this time.
Russell is waiting in the kitchen, clutching the gun Millie used to shoot him — except that gun fired blanks. This time, it is filled with real bullets. He’s ready.
The elevator doors swing open. Wendy walks down the hallway to greet her husband one last time. Her heart races. Her plan is so close she can taste it.
Then she stops short.
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**Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating**
Oh wow. This chapter is chilling. Watching Wendy manipulate Russell — pushing him, insulting him, breaking him down until he punches her in the face — is both terrifying and fascinating. She is completely cold-blooded, viewing even her own blood as just another prop in her deadly scheme. The shift to the murder scene is electric. We know what’s coming, and yet the cliffhanger makes it even more unbearable. Everything is in place: Millie is the perfect scapegoat, the evidence is planted, and now Russell is holding a loaded gun. How far will he really go? This chapter earns every bit of tension.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.9 / 5 Stars
**Next Chapter Prediction**
Wendy has stopped short — and the next chapter is going to be explosive. I think Douglas will sense something very wrong the moment he sees her. There will be a confrontation, a struggle, and possibly a moment where Russell hesitates. But Wendy is too far gone to let anything ruin her plan. My prediction: Russell will pull the trigger, but something unexpected will happen — maybe Douglas fights back, maybe a call to the police comes too soon, or maybe Russell turns the gun on Wendy. The night of the murder is only beginning, and someone else might end up dead.
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