Chapter 5 · Left My Billionaire Husband for Rosenheim

The photo was posted by Edward on his social media.

He had his arm around the other person's shoulder, with the caption "Strong alliance, win-win cooperation."

I sent both the photo and the email to Richard at the same time.

Richard paused for a moment, then said, "Just keep working on the project. Let the company's audit handle everything else. Don't say a word to anyone who asks."

"Understood."

At 2 AM, we reallocated the work.

Four days had already gone by out of our ten-day deadline, which meant we only had six days left to actually get things done.

I split the team into three groups and handled the overall plan and all the client communication myself. I was getting less than four hours of sleep a day. My apartment was just for show at that point.

By noon on the fifth day, Edward started calling me nonstop again.

I picked up once during a break between meetings.

"What's up?" I asked.

He was barely holding back his anger. "The property management showed up at the office. They said we're four months behind on the property fees. You need to pay them right now."

"I only stopped paying a few days ago—how are we four months behind?"

There was silence on the other end.

I quickly realized what was going on.

For months, Margaret always inflated the bill. The money I sent her never went to the property fees at all.

"Tell your mom to cough up the money," I said.

"Her money's tied up in investments. She can't get it out right now."

"What about your 600,000 dollars?"

"That's in investments too."

"Then just wait until it matures."

Edward finally lost it.

"The elevator card's dead, and we've got a power cut notice at home. I have to deal with this crap every single day at work! Emily, are you messing with me?"

"There's a QR code for payment right on the bill. Any adult can figure it out."

"I don't have time to argue with you right now. I've got an important client this afternoon. Just send the money over."

"I've got an important client too."

"You really think your client is more important than mine? If I close this deal, I'm getting a 600,000 dollars commission!" Edward snapped.

I glanced at the project confirmation letter I was about to sign.

"My contract's worth 24 million dollars."

Edward went silent for a moment, stunned.

"Stop acting like the company project makes you special. You're just an assistant, not the boss. Do you really think you're in charge?"

The conference room door swung open, and Henry was standing in the doorway, waiting for me.

I kept quiet.

"If there's nothing else, I'm hanging up."

"Wait!"

Edward suddenly lowered his voice.

"Mom's birthday is next week. Everyone in the family already knows. If you're not coming back, just send me the money for the necklace. 12,600 dollars, not a cent less."

"If I save three dollars a day, it'll take me thirteen years to save up 12,600 dollars," I said.

I hung up.

That afternoon, after reviewing the new proposal, the client agreed to move forward with the simulation test.

For the first time since the project kicked off, they didn't immediately say no.

Some of the team cheered, but Carl pushed a test report over to me.

"The response time's faster, but we're still losing data during peak hours. If we can't fix this before tomorrow's demo, all our hard work goes down the drain."

I led the tech team as we dove back into the code.

By 3 AM, we finally zeroed in on a hidden interface.

This interface wasn't in any technical documentation, and whenever the system hit peak hours, it would secretly siphon off some data and send it to an external server.

Carl's face went pale.

"Someone left a backdoor in the system."

We cut off the external connection, traced the address, and finally pinpointed a domestic data service company.

The company had only been registered for two years, and the legal representative was just an unknown name.

But their contact number was already in my contacts.

It was Edward's work number.

Before I could even reach out to Richard, Olivia, my colleague back home, sent me a photo.

In the picture, Margaret was standing at the front desk of my company, with two Harrington Family Relatives right behind her.

She was waving the marriage certificate and yelling at the receptionist.

"I'm Emily's mother-in-law! She stole over 300,000 dollars from our family, and you have to hand her over today!"

Chapter 5

The photo was posted by Edward on his social media.

He had his arm around the other person's shoulder, with the caption "Strong alliance, win-win cooperation."

I sent both the photo and the email to Richard at the same time.

Richard paused for a moment, then said, "Just keep working on the project. Let the company's audit handle everything else. Don't say a word to anyone who asks."

"Understood."

At 2 AM, we reallocated the work.

Four days had already gone by out of our ten-day deadline, which meant we only had six days left to actually get things done.

By noon on the fifth day, Edward started calling me nonstop again.

I picked up once during a break between meetings.

"What's up?" I asked.

He was barely holding back his anger. "The property management showed up at the office. They said we're four months behind on the property fees. You need to pay them right now."

"I only stopped paying a few days ago—how are we four months behind?"

There was silence on the other end.

I quickly realized what was going on.

For months, Margaret always inflated the bill. The money I sent her never went to the property fees at all.

"Tell your mom to cough up the money," I said.

"Her money's tied up in investments. She can't get it out right now."

"What about your 600,000 dollars?"

"That's in investments too."

"Then just wait until it matures."

Edward finally lost it.

"The elevator card's dead, and we've got a power cut notice at home. I have to deal with this crap every single day at work! Emily, are you messing with me?"

"There's a QR code for payment right on the bill. Any adult can figure it out."

"I don't have time to argue with you right now. I've got an important client this afternoon. Just send the money over."

"I've got an important client too."

"You really think your client is more important than mine? If I close this deal, I'm getting a 600,000 dollars commission!" Edward snapped.

I glanced at the project confirmation letter I was about to sign.

"My contract's worth 24 million dollars."

Edward went silent for a moment, stunned.

"Stop acting like the company project makes you special. You're just an assistant, not the boss. Do you really think you're in charge?"

The conference room door swung open, and Henry was standing in the doorway, waiting for me.

I kept quiet.

"If there's nothing else, I'm hanging up."

"Wait!"

Edward suddenly lowered his voice.

"Mom's birthday is next week. Everyone in the family already knows. If you're not coming back, just send me the money for the necklace. 12,600 dollars, not a cent less."

"If I save three dollars a day, it'll take me thirteen years to save up 12,600 dollars," I said.

I hung up.

That afternoon, after reviewing the new proposal, the client agreed to move forward with the simulation test.

For the first time since the project kicked off, they didn't immediately say no.

Some of the team cheered, but Carl pushed a test report over to me.

"The response time's faster, but we're still losing data during peak hours. If we can't fix this before tomorrow's demo, all our hard work goes down the drain."

I led the tech team as we dove back into the code.

By 3 AM, we finally zeroed in on a hidden interface.

This interface wasn't in any technical documentation, and whenever the system hit peak hours, it would secretly siphon off some data and send it to an external server.

Carl's face went pale.

"Someone left a backdoor in the system."

We cut off the external connection, traced the address, and finally pinpointed a domestic data service company.

The company had only been registered for two years, and the legal representative was just an unknown name.

But their contact number was already in my contacts.

It was Edward's work number.

Before I could even reach out to Richard, Olivia, my colleague back home, sent me a photo.

In the picture, Margaret was standing at the front desk of my company, with two Harrington Family Relatives right behind her.

She was waving the marriage certificate and yelling at the receptionist.

"I'm Emily's mother-in-law! She stole over 300,000 dollars from our family, and you have to hand her over today!"