Chapter 1

My husband just bought a new car, saying it would be safer for picking up me and our daughter from now on.

Today there was a torrential downpour, so I opened the car company's app, wanting to turn on the air conditioning for him in advance.

But the location wasn't at his office at all—it was at the City Maternity Hospital.

I clicked on the vehicle status and froze.

The passenger seat memory had been adjusted to "pregnant woman recline mode."

The rear entertainment screen was playing "Prenatal Music Collection."

And my daughter was standing at the elementary school entrance with a broken umbrella, waiting for him to pick her up.

I silently saved the driving route and called an Uber for my daughter.

When I got home, my daughter had already finished dinner and was doing homework.

The Uber I called arrived half an hour before Brooks did.

When he came through the door, he was soaked through, looking exhausted.

"Traffic was insane out there. This rain is unreal." He complained while changing his shoes.

"Did you pick up Bonnie?"

"Yeah, I called a car for her," I said flatly.

He paused, then put on a guilty expression. "Ah, that's my fault. The office had a last-minute meeting I couldn't get out of. Sorry you and the kid had to deal with that."

He walked over to hug me.

I stepped aside and handed him a dry towel.

"Go take a shower. Don't catch a cold."

He didn't notice anything unusual about me and headed to the bathroom with the towel.

I picked up his phone. Face recognition unlocked it instantly.

At the top were messages from me, our daughter's class group chat, and the company group.

Scrolling down, everything was work-related.

I opened his photo album. The recently deleted folder was empty.

He was careful, but the car wasn't.

I opened my phone and clicked on the car app.

In the vehicle data, there was an energy consumption log.

Every trip's starting point, destination, duration, and power consumption were crystal clear.

At 3 PM, departure from his office, destination City Maternity Hospital, stop duration one hour and twenty minutes.

Then, departure from the maternity hospital, destination a residential complex I'd never been to.

Golden Sky, one of the most upscale developments in the city, twelve thousand dollars per square foot.

The car was still parked there.

So how did he get home?

I zoomed in on the map. Right next to Golden Sky was a subway station.

The sound of running water in the bathroom stopped.

Brooks came out wrapped in a bathrobe, his hair still dripping.

"Honey, come help me dry my hair." He smiled at me.

I walked over and picked up the hairdryer.

The warm air blew through his hair and across the skin of his neck.

There was a long hair there—not mine.

My hair was long, straight, and black. This one was brown and wavy.

I didn't move it.

After drying his hair, he went to the study to work overtime, satisfied.

I returned to the bedroom and closed the door.

I opened our joint bank account.

On the 15th of this month, there was a fifty-thousand-dollar withdrawal.

Description: Sister's loan.

Brooks was an only child. Where did he get a sister?

I scrolled back.

Last month on the 15th, fifty thousand.

The month before that on the 15th, fifty thousand.

This "sister's loan" had been going on for half a year.

Every month, right on schedule.

Six months, three hundred thousand dollars. Exactly the price of that car.

My hands felt cold.

I closed the banking app.

I opened Brooks's Twitter.

Three months ago, he'd posted something.

"My little sister's all grown up, coming to the big city to make it. Gotta take good care of her."

The attached photo showed a girl's silhouette standing at an airport exit, wearing a white dress, pulling a pink suitcase.

At the time, I'd even commented below: "Your sister looks beautiful, when are you bringing her home to visit?"

He'd replied: "She just got here, she's shy. I'll bring her over once she's settled in."

Looking back now, this was probably that sister.

A sister who needed him to drive a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car, adjust it to pregnant woman mode, play prenatal music, and take her for prenatal checkups at the maternity hospital.