Chapter 4

"Okay," I said, nodding. My voice was calmer than I expected. "As long as you're okay."

I turned and walked out of the bathroom.

But I had to stand in the hallway for ten seconds before my breathing finally returned to normal.

At breakfast, I put on a good show.

As I picked up some food with my fork, I smiled at my Mom and said, "Mom, you've really been working hard these past three months. With so many people in the house, it must be tough for you to handle everything."

Mom was beaming at my words. "Exactly! Your dad doesn't help at all. I'm the one running the whole show."

I nodded, sounding genuinely sincere. "Yeah, I can see that. Once things calm down, I'll take you and Dad on a trip."

Mom's smile stretched from ear to ear.

Uncle chimed in, "Mark, your mom said you run a tech company? How's business these days?"

"It's so-so, just getting by," I replied.

"Hey, you're really making something of yourself. By the way, your aunt wants to find a job in the city. Think you could help her find something?" Uncle asked.

Mom immediately jumped in, "If you can help, go ahead. We're all family."

"Sure, I'll look into it when I get a chance," I replied with a smile.

Nina was eating by the kitchen door. When she heard our conversation, her fork froze mid-air, but she kept quiet.

After breakfast, I drove over to Zane's law firm.

Zane was my college roommate, and now he was a partner at Trust Law Firm, mainly handling family and divorce disputes.

He slid a stack of bank statements across the table to me.

"I did what you asked. I pulled up three months of records for all your accounts. The main card looks normal, but the supplementary card you got for your wife, "

He tapped a line of numbers with his pen.

"Total spending over three months: 32,110 dollars."

I took the statements and started looking through them.

The first transaction was for 4,000 dollars at a shopping mall, the receipt said it was an electronics store.

The date was the fifth day since the family showed up.

I remembered checking the security footage that day, my aunt took her oldest kid out, and when they came back, the kid had an iPad in hand.

The second transaction was a 15,000 dollars transfer to a property agent, with a note saying "first month as deposit, three months paid upfront."

I frowned.

Zane explained, "Someone used your wife's secondary card to pay the rent. I checked the recipient, turns out it's a landlord from a place in the southern part of town."

My uncle's family had been renting back home, and they'd already given up their place before coming here.

So, Mom had used Nina's secondary card to rent them a place in the southern part of town ahead of time, not just for a temporary stay, but clearly planning for them to settle down here for good.

First month as deposit, three months paid upfront.

That was four and a half months' rent.

"Go on," I said.

Zane flipped to the next page. "There are a few more major expenses, two phones, one for 2,333 dollars and the other for 1,833 dollars. Three kids got signed up for a summer camp, tuition was 9,000 dollars. Grocery bills averaged 2,500 to 3,000 dollars a month, feeding nine people. Oh, and here's an interesting one, a beauty salon prepaid card for 10,000 dollars. The purchase wasn't made by your wife; the name on the record is Gloria."

Gloria.

That was my mom's name.

I went through the statements page by page, tallying up the amounts in my head.

62,442 dollars.

All of it came out of Nina's secondary card.

And Nina probably had no idea where all that money went, Gloria had turned off the purchase alerts for the secondary card. I saw it on the security footage that night when she was setting up call forwarding; she also disabled the spending notifications.

"Mark," Zane leaned back in his chair, watching me. "So, what's on your mind?"

"I want you to draw up a notarized marital property agreement. All three apartments, two cars, and 8% of my company shares, make sure they're all covered," I said.

Zane sat up straight. "You want to transfer all that to your wife?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"Are you sure? Just that 8% of the shares, based on the last valuation, is worth, "

"32 million dollars," I finished for him. "Absolutely. I'm sure."

Zane paused for a few seconds.

"Okay. I'll get it ready this afternoon," Zane said.

He paused for a moment, then asked, "You're not planning to lay all your cards on the table just yet?"

"No need to rush," I said.

I stood up, folded the bank statements, and slipped them into my briefcase.

Mark said, "Let them stick around for a few more days. There are still some things I need to figure out."

"What kind of things?" Zane asked.

I paused at the door.