Chapter 6
The next day, I stepped into the office, and the atmosphere felt even more suffocating than usual.
Howard's self-satisfied grin looked like a clown's painted mask to me.
He lived up to his name as the privileged heir. During work hours, he was either flirting with the front desk girls in the break room, or playing game in his private office, which was way bigger than mine.
Technology manager? Yeah, right.
He was more like the king of slacking off.
I acted like I was focused on my work, but honestly, I was listening in on everything like a rabbit with its ears perked up.
"Mr. Yates, about this quarter's KPIs..." said the the team leader, looking nervous.
"Yeah, yeah," Howard replied impatiently. "I got it. Just leave it there."
He didn't even bother to look up, his eyes still glued to his phone.
It seemed he was chatting with someone again. That sleazy smirk on his lips made him look even creepier.
Every time a few female colleagues walked past his office, he'd whistle at them.
Or he'd toss out some lewd jokes, making them squeal and laugh as they ran off.
I wondered if these women were really that naive, or if they were merely pretending.
I watched the whole scene with detached indifference.
After work, I didn't head straight home.
I stayed behind at the office, using the excuse that I needed to work on the newly deployed servers.
Late at night, I was the only one left at my desk.
This was my chance.
I sneaked over to Howard's desk. His computer was still on, just locked.
An idiot like him most likely used a password like "123456" or his own birthday.
But I didn't even try to crack his password as the risk was too high.
My real target was the company's network logs.
I had admin privileges.
It was one of the few perks I'd earned after years of hard work, even if it now seemed ironic.
I pulled up Howard's recent IP login records and network activity logs.
Turned out, this guy wasn't just slacking off during work hours. He also downloaded a whole bunch of sex tapes on the company network.
Talk about having way too much energy for all the wrong things.
His browsing history was full of gaming sites and luxury stores. There were also reservation records for several upscale hotels and fancy restaurants around town.
The timeframes of those bookings matched almost exactly when Roxy's photo was taken.
Just as I was about to dig deeper, the cleaning lady, Mary, came in pushing her cart.
"Mitch, still working late? You should head home and get some rest."
"Yeah, Mary, I'll be done soon."
I quickly closed all the windows and erased any traces of my activity.
I couldn't afford to alert anyone.
The next day, I reached out to Guince.
"Guince, can you look into Howard Yates, the new technology manager at my company? His dad is Mr. Ernest Yates," I said.
"Oh, the privileged heir? Mitch, did you get yourself into some trouble with him?" Guince sounded a bit surprised.
"Cut the crap. Check his recent spending records, especially at high-end places. And find out which women he's been close to lately—the more details, the better," I said, getting straight to the point.
"Well, that's not gonna be easy, but how could I say no to you, Mitch?" Guince hesitated for a second. "About the price, though—"
"Relax. I'll make sure you're taken care of," I jumped in before he could finish.
"Awesome! I'll let you know as soon as I find out anything."
Those two days waiting for Guince's news felt like an eternity.
On Moses' end, after digging deeper into the company's internal network logs, he stumbled upon something pretty interesting.
The IP address that sent the anonymous email was hidden behind layers of proxies.
But its activity patterns had some odd coincidences with Howard's usual behavior on the company network.
Like slacking off at the exact same hours, or visiting the same favorite sites.
"Mitch, it's almost certain—it's him," Moses said over the phone.
My heart sank.
On Friday afternoon, I got a message from Guince. There were a few photos and some video clips.
The photos were taken right outside a well-known five-star hotel in the new CBD.
Howard had his arm around a woman's waist, beaming from ear to ear.
The woman was wearing oversized sunglasses and a mask, almost completely hiding her face.
But her silhouette was wearing a camel-colored trench coat, and the limited-edition bracelet was the one I'd given to Roxy.
My breath caught in my throat.
The video was even more direct.
In the hotel's dim underground parking lot, the two of them were making out like no one else existed.
She pulled off her mask, and I finally saw the side of her face.
I could never mistake it. I knew it like the back of my hand.
It was Roxy. It really was her.
I felt like every drop of blood in my body froze solid. My hands and feet went ice-cold, as if I'd been thrown straight into a frozen abyss.
Guince shot me another message: [Mitch, I found out who this woman was. Isn't this your wife? What the hell is going on here?]
I didn't respond.
I just stared at that all-too-familiar side profile on my phone screen, feeling like a knife was twisting in my heart.
The photo, that black lace nightgown, that strange hotel room... Every detail burned into my mind.
All the fragments finally came together, revealing a complete but merciless truth.
The happy family I thought I had was nothing but a carefully woven lie.
The gentle, devoted wife I believed in was actually betraying me behind my back with another man.
Rage and despair crashed through my chest like two wild beasts, almost tearing me apart.
That cheating pair!
I clenched my phone so hard my knuckles turned white.