Chapter 3

The living room looked exactly as I'd left it. The clothes I'd laid out for David were still on the couch, and the half-full glass of water sat on the table.

Everywhere I looked, traces of my efforts lingered, along with signs of my foolishness.

I didn't cry, not even a flicker of sadness. David's betrayal had scorched every feeling, burning away the fool who believed in love, leaving nothing but a cold, empty wasteland.

Five years of memories raced through my head. I didn't relive them; I saw each lie for what it truly was.

Why had David insisted on that unmarked trail five years ago? Why had he slipped from view just then? And why had he emphasized that his leg had gone numb when the rescue team found us, rather than the joy of surviving?

That excuse about not wanting to drag me down? How ridiculous it sounded now.

He never cared about dragging me down; he wanted to pull me out of the financial world, strip me of my independence, and make me revolve around him, nothing but an accessory to feed his warped sense of pride.

I walked into the study and sat down at the laptop.

For the past five years, I'd only used this laptop to look up recipes and rehab advice. But now, it was the starting point for my revenge.

I brushed the thin layer of dust off the laptop. As the screen lit up, my pale, eerily calm face stared back. Ignoring the cheerful snapshot on the desktop, I started typing, each keystroke sharp and decisive.

I opened my browser and typed in the URL I knew by heart. After five years away, the bank systems, trading platforms, and encrypted databases I knew like the back of my hand felt like they'd come back to life immediately.

I used to be the youngest CFO at a listed company, a master at the capital table. David spent five years trying to turn me into an obedient housecat. But he was dead wrong. I stayed up all night, barely closing my eyes.

With the help of a few former subordinates and a private investigator, I began to see an intricate web of betrayal exposing secrets I never imagined.

David's mom, who always sighed and praised me for being such a good wife, had somehow acquired two properties in her name.

One was in the neighboring complex, where Sophie and her two-year-old son lived. The other was across the city, rented out, with the rent deposited directly into an account I'd never even heard of.

David's stock account had been emptied three years ago; the money was funneled through his mother's accounts into an offshore trust registered in the Coldharbor.

What really gutted me was how he dealt with the few-thousand-dollar accident insurance payout.

I got it after David was "paralyzed". But he convinced me to invest it in a project run by his friend—a shell company that had already been dissolved. I never suspected a thing.

Now, it was sitting blatantly in an investment account under his mother's name.

It turned out that from the moment I resigned, David was already laying the groundwork for his new life and new family. I wasn't his partner; I was nothing but his cash cow, with everything I earned funneled to his other family.

But I held all the cards; I was his legal wife, and his sole guardian now that he was legally incapacitated. Every medical decision was mine to make.

At dawn, I shut the laptop. My plan for revenge was locked in.