At the company’s annual meeting, my wife’s youthful male assistant suddenly played an audio recording. He accused me of leaking company secrets.

Before I could explain my part, my wife stepped forward and bent one of my fingers backward until it broke.

“Robert! How shameless can you be?” she shouted. “I feed you, I support you, but now you stab me in the back?!”

The company's success today was entirely due to my hard work and dedication. My fingers were my whole-life.

I shoved Beatrice away, protecting my hands and glared at her through the extreme pain. “Beatrice, I never said any of those words in the recording. Do you really trust someone who joined the company barely six months ago more than me?”

“Syl never lies!” Beatrice cut me off sharply. “Robert, you always brag about your achievements. I’m sick of it. Since you won’t admit your mistake, I need to teach you a lesson!”

Before I could react, Sylvester grabbed me with a twisted grin and forced me onto the floor.

Beatrice then picked up a knife and stabbed it into the center of my left palm, then ground her high heel down on the wound.

“Robert, today I’m ruining your hands. I sure hope you'll behave yourself after this!”

I looked at my bleeding hands and spat toward Beatrice’s feet.

Fine. I swore her company wouldn't survive without my hands.

——

Unfortunately, seeing my anger only fueled her anger. Beatrice stormed into the office, grabbed the expensive golf club I had bought for her and rushed toward me.

“Beatrice, don’t—”

Before I finished, she swung the golf club down on my right hand. I could hear my bones snapped and with it unbearable pain shot through my entire body.

My right hand went limp like tofu and got completely crushed after the incident.

I had been drawing all my life. My hands mattered more to me than my own life. And Beatrice sure knew that.

With tears and rage filling my eyes, I struggled to take out my phone to call an ambulance. If I didn’t get treatment soon, I might never hold a brush again.

Using my injured left hand, I pressed the numbers slowly. “9… 1…”

Just as I was about to press 1, Beatrice kicked the phone out of my hand.

“You still want to call an ambulance after what you did? Robert, I paid your expenses even phone bill! Do you think I'd let you spend my money while betraying me?!”

Her company's biggest income came from my paintings. People were lining up every day willing to spend millions on my work and I rejected all of them. I only allowed my paintings to be shown at her company’s exhibitions.

Because of my art, her exhibitions had become impossible to get tickets for.

“Robert, apologize to Syl! Right now! Or you’re not getting any medical help today!”

I stared at my own wife whose life I had helped build up with my own hands. “Beatrice… my hands are my life. You know that…”

She glanced at my bloody fingers. “Of course I know. That’s why, if you want to keep your ‘life,’ you’d better apologize.”

Around us, my coworkers started whispering.

“He did something wrong and still acts so confident. Just because he has a little talent?”

“Talent? Without our company’s exhibitions, his paintings wouldn’t even be noticed. Breaking his hands will teach him a good lesson.”

“I think Syl is really talented. Just look at his hands—he’s clearly going to be a top artist!”

“Of course. Director Goldreich never chooses the wrong person…”

The other employees' mocking voices pushed my heart into an icy pit.

Most of the people in the company were people I had once “picked up” from different parks. They all had dreams of becoming artists, but they could not even feed themselves. They had to do hard labor, serve tables, or work in bars to pay for their dreams.

I was the one who brought them into the company. I supported them for many years and only then did they finally get the chance to shine on the path of their dreams. I can still remember them crying and almost kneeling to thank me as if it happened just yesterday.

And now… all of them humiliate me.

While I turned around, Sylvester suddenly rushed out from behind Beatrice. He kicked my knee, forcing me to kneel and held me down tightly.

“Robert,” he shouted, “Ms. Goldreich is already giving you a chance for an apology. If you stay stubborn like a rock and make her angry again, I won't hesitate to make you more misserable!”

I threw Sylvester off me, clenched my fist and punched him right in the face. Blood instantly burst across Sylvester’s face from that punch.

I work out all year. Dealing with this little brat is nothing.

When Beatrice saw her 'loyal' assistant injured, she hurried to help him up.

Her eyes were full of worry. “Don’t be scared, Syl. I'll stand up for you.”

Then she turned to me. “Robert, you—”

“Beatrice, let’s divorce,” I said.

She froze in response.

I did not have time to argue with her. My hand could not wait any longer. While she was still stunned, I borrowed the cleaning lady’s phone.

“Beatrice, you didn’t pay for the cleaning lady’s phone bill, right?”

Ignoring the stabbing pain in my palm, I called an ambulance. Then I looked at her and said, “Beatrice, I’m willing to leave with nothing. When we got married, I had 27,400 dollars in my account. That is my own money. I will use my own money to fix my own hand. From this moment on, you have no right to control me anymore.”

Without waiting for her reaction, I left the office and sat on the sofa in the hallway.

There’s a hospital less than one kilometer away. The ambulance should arrive quickly. For the sake of my hand, I couldn’t leave yet.

Beatrice stayed inside the company making calls about something, but that no longer had anything to do with me.

While I waited, my phone beeped with a new message:

[Robby, we truly appreciate your talent and we are ready to pay for it. We have decided to invest 450 million dollars in Director Goldreich’s company. Tomorrow we will visit the company to talk to you in person.]

I suddenly remembered. Today was the day the investors would give their final answer. Sylvester ruined everything.

I should have explained the situation to them, but now my hand couldn’t type anything. So… they would just have to come tomorrow.

The sound of fast footsteps pulled me out of my thoughts. The doctors finally arrived.

The lead doctor looked at my right hand and let out a sigh. “Who did this to you? Good thing you called the ambulance in time. I don't think we could save your hand if it were too lete.”

The doctor quickly turned to pick up his tools, ready to treat me.

But just as he was about to start, Beatrice rushed out of the office.

Beatrice grabbed the medical tools from the doctor’s hands and threw them into the trash.

I stood up quickly and pushed Beatrice into the corner with my shoulder. My eyes were red with anger as I glared at her. “Beatrice, what is wrong with you?!”

“Robert, I just bought this entire building. If you want to act tough, then don’t treat those hands that betrayed me on my property!” she said.

The doctor suddenly stood up behind us, his eyes full of anger. “Ma’am, if we don’t treat this man’s hand now, it will be completely ruined! I don’t care what happened between you, but as a doctor, I am here to save lives! Please step aside. We need to treat his injury!”

He tried to walk toward me, but before he could get close, Sylvester pushed him away. Then the company’s security guards came forward together, blocking all the doctors outside.

Sylvester smiled, opened his phone camera and pointed it at me.

“Robert, if you admit that you leaked company secrets, we’ll take you to the hospital right away. We’ll even use Director Goldreich’s helicopter to send you to the best orthopedic hospital in the Capitol. If you refused, you can wait until you’re disabled.”

I stared hard at Beatrice. “Beatrice…”

She rubbed the place where I had pinned her earlier and said calmly, with a proud smile, “Why are you looking at me? Syl already gave you a choice. If you don’t want it, that’s your problem.”

Behind me, the doctors shouted anxiously, “Mr. Kleinn, if you wait any longer, your hand really cannot be saved! Protecting your hand is the most important thing!”

Thinking about the career I had loved my whole life and remembering the satisfaction in my father’s eyes when he realized I could inherit his artistic skill, I held back my tears.

Facing Sylvester’s camera, I forced myself to speak. “I admit… I leaked the company’s secrets.”

I repeated the entire script Sylvester had prepared.

Right after I finished, one doctor rushed forward and grabbed Sylvester’s arm. “We’ve already lost too much time. Earlier you mentioned your company’s helicopter—”

“The pilot, Mr. Park’s nephew, went back home for a wedding. The helicopter can’t fly.”

Beatrice cut the doctor off. She looked at me with a smile full of pride and disgust, then walked away.

The surgery on my hands lasted eighteen hours.

When they finally pushed me out of the operating room, I met a different doctor whose face pale was with exhaustion. She bowed to me.

“Mr. Kleinn, we really tried everything, but the results are not good… I’m afraid you won’t be able to draw again.”

The salty taste of my tears slid into my mouth, filling me with endless bitterness. But I forced myself to smile and looked at her with pleading eyes.

“It’s okay. Please give me some painkillers now. I need to be discharged. There are still many things I must do.”

“No. If we give you more anesthesia, your hand will definitely be ruined forever!”

I fell to my knees with a thud. “Please… I’m begging you.”

Two hours later, the painkillers took effect.

Smiling, I walked out of the hospital with my bandaged hand soaked in blood. If they destroyed me, then none of them would have peace either.

First, I went to the exhibition that my company was hosting in the city and tore apart all of my paintings.

Then I went back to the company and deleted all my ideas and sketches from my computer.

While I was destroying the unfinished paintings in Beatrice’s office, the door burst open. Beatrice and Sylvester rushed in.