Chapter 4

The next few days.

Picking up my daughter, cooking, handling household chores.

Brooks didn't notice anything unusual. He was even more attentive than before.

He'd proactively buy me gifts, saying "you've worked hard."

He gave me a lipstick.

Probably from some "gifts for your wife that can't go wrong" list he'd found somewhere.

He didn't know I'd stopped wearing that color long ago.

I smiled and accepted it. "Thank you."

He was satisfied.

Thinking a three-hundred-dollar lipstick could smooth over all his debts.

Behind his back, I met with two people.

The first was my college senior Tony, who now ran his own cybersecurity company.

I gave him all of Brooks's and Marta's social media accounts.

"Tony, I need a favor. I need all their chat logs, emails, cloud storage content. Everything."

My senior looked at me. "Lester, this is illegal."

"I know." I looked at him. "But I've been wronged right in my own home. I need to know where I lost."

Tony was silent for a moment, then nodded.

"Three days."

The second person was my father.

My father was an entrepreneur of the old generation, self-made, lived his whole life upright and honest, hated nothing more than betrayal.

Our company was something Brooks and I built together after marriage, but the startup capital came from my father.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

At the time, Brooks had beaten his chest promising my father: "Don't worry, I'll never let Lester down in this lifetime."

My father had designated that five hundred thousand as my premarital property, clearly stating it was a gift to me alone.

But when registering the company, Brooks said that husband and wife were one, shares should be 60% his, 40% mine—that way he'd have more face when doing business outside.

I loved him then, trusted him. I said okay.

Now, he was using that 60% stake to keep a mistress outside, raise an illegitimate child, buy cars and houses.

I met my father at the old family estate.

I laid everything out.

From the car app to the maternity center.

My father listened without a word.

He smoked half a pack of cigarettes until the study was thick with smoke.

Finally, he crushed the cigarette butt in the ashtray.

"Lester, what do you want to do?"

"Dad, I want to take back everything that belongs to me."

"What about the company?"

"The company is something he and I built together. I can't let him take my life's work and use it as a dowry for someone else."

My father looked at me, heartache in his eyes.

"Alright." He said just one word.

"Dad, I need you to help me contact someone."

"Who?"

"Weber."

Weber was my father's old war buddy who later transferred to the tax system. He was retired now.

But I knew his connections and prestige were still intact.

My father understood what I meant.

"I'll arrange it."

Three days later, Tony gave me a hard drive.

Inside were all of Brooks's and Marta's communication records.

I spent an entire night reading through everything.

Their chats had started two years ago.

Back then, Marta was a new intern at the company.

Brooks was the high-and-mighty boss.

Their conversations were full of the tacit pulling and testing between adults.

Marta would send him some suggestive selfies.

"Brooks, does this outfit look good today?"

Brooks would reply: "Too good, not suitable for the office."

Marta: "Then where is it suitable for?"

Brooks: "In my car."

I saw records of their first hotel rendezvous, at a hotel right next to the office.

That day, Brooks told me he had to work overtime.

I saw the long message Marta sent Brooks after getting pregnant.

"Brooks, I'm so scared. I haven't even graduated yet. I can't let the child be born without status. Lester is so wonderful, I don't want to destroy your family. Maybe... I should just abort the baby."

Every word, every sentence talked about "abortion," but every single word was actually an ultimatum.

Brooks's reply was long.

"Marta, don't be afraid. I'm sorry you have to go through this. Don't worry, you're the person I've wronged most in this life. She and I have no feelings left, we're just going through the motions. Once the child is born, I'll have a showdown with her. The company, the house, the car—everything will belong to us and the child from now on."

I saw the company equity structure diagram he'd sent to Marta.

He'd circled his 60% in red pen, with a note beside it: "This will all be my son's someday."

I saw a draft divorce agreement he'd made, stored in his private cloud.

Party A: Brooks.

Party B: Lester.

Property division:

The house we lived in together after marriage goes to me. But I must bear the remaining twenty years of mortgage payments.

The eight-year-old BMW Mini in my name goes to me.

Custody of our daughter goes to me. He'll pay three thousand dollars monthly in child support.

The company equity, as his premarital investment return, has nothing to do with me.

Deposits and investments in his name also have nothing to do with me.

He planned to leave me with nothing.

He wanted to kick my daughter and me out of the life we'd built together.

At the bottom was another note.

"Lester has a gentle personality and no opinions of her own. She should sign quickly."

I stared at that line. Gentle personality, no opinions of her own.

I put away the hard drive.

Then I dialed Weber's number.