Aria's reply came fast.

"Just asked around. Last week, Mary Pruitt was putting together a damages proposal for a client and misplaced a decimal point. Off by a whole digit. The client ended up overclaiming by three hundred thousand dollars, and the other side countersued. It should've been escalated to the managing director, but Brad buried it. Paid the three hundred grand out of his own pocket to cover the hole."

"Everyone at the firm knows?"

"Everyone. They're all whispering about how Brad's got it bad for this intern. 'Going to war over a pretty face'—that's the phrase making the rounds."

Got it bad.

I stared at my phone screen.

A wave of nausea rolled through me.

At ten that night, I came home.

Brad was on the couch reviewing case files.

He didn't look up when the door opened.

"Straighten your shoes. That's minus two points."

I looked down at the slippers in the entryway.

I took off my shoes, lined them up side by side, and set them flush against the red tile border.

Not a millimeter off.

I walked over and placed the thumbprinted IOU on the coffee table.

He picked it up, glanced at it.

"Good. Filed. Interest starts accruing tomorrow—don't forget."

He slid the IOU into a clear document folder.

That folder held every piece of our "marriage paperwork." The prenup. The point system. Itemized penalty records going back years.

Now it had a promissory note too.

"Brad," I said.

"Hm?"

"Have you had a lot of extra cash lying around lately?"

His fingers paused on the keyboard.

"Why are you asking?"

"No reason. Just impressed you could hand over a hundred thousand like it was nothing."

He adjusted his glasses.

"I'm a senior attorney. A couple of big cases and the money's there. You think everyone's like you, scraping by on that pathetic salary of yours?"

"Fair enough." I nodded. "By the way, how's the family fund account doing? The returns been good?"

He frowned.

"Why are you asking about that? You're in negative points. You don't have access privileges."

"Just curious."

"The investment products are in a lock-up period. There's nothing to see right now. Worry about your own score."

He closed his laptop.

"I'm hungry. Go make me some noodles."

"I'm exhausted today."

"Making noodles earns five points. Your score is embarrassing right now."

I looked at him.

"Fine."

I walked into the kitchen.

Opened the fridge.

A QR code was taped to the inside of the door.

Unauthorized consumption of premium ingredients—scan to pay.

That was a rule he'd added last month.

Because I'd pan-seared a cut of Wagyu he'd bought without asking his permission first.

I grabbed two eggs and a bundle of dried noodles.

The water boiled. I dropped the noodles in.

I stood at the stove, watching the bubbles churn.

I was a data analyst.

Every day at work, I processed millions of data points. Hunted for anomalies. Built risk-control models.

But I had never once turned that skill set on my own marriage.

Because I'd believed marriage was a safe harbor.

Now I knew better.

It was a slaughterhouse.

The noodles were done. I carried the bowl out.

He took one bite.

"Not enough salt. Minus one point."

I said nothing.

He ate his noodles, phone lying on the table.

The screen lit up.

A WhatsApp notification slid into view.

From: Mary Pruitt.

"Mr. Mason, my ankle hurts sooo bad today. Can I come in half an hour late for tomorrow's case? Pleeeease?"

Brad glanced at it, picked up his phone, and typed a reply.

I was standing just behind him, off to the side.

I saw what he wrote: "Just this once. Don't forget to put ointment on it."

He sent it and set the phone down.

"Tomorrow's Saturday. I want this place cleaned top to bottom. If I find a single hair in the bathroom corners, that's minus ten points."

"Fine," I said.

The next day, Brad went to the firm to work overtime. Something about a big case he needed to follow up on.

I grabbed a rag and a bottle of disinfectant and started cleaning. Living room to bedroom. Kitchen to study.

The study was his territory. I wasn't allowed to touch his files. It was written right there in the rules: "Unauthorized access to the other party's private documents: minus 50 points."

I wasn't planning to touch his files today.

I turned on his desktop computer.

He was the type to password-protect everything. But I knew his password. It wasn't his birthday. It wasn't mine, either. It was the date he'd received his bar certification.

I typed it in. The desktop loaded.

His work computer and home computer were synced through the same cloud account. I opened the cloud drive and typed a keyword into the search bar: Chase Bank.

A few folders popped up. I clicked the most recent one.

Inside were digital transaction receipts, one after another. I scrolled down. Down to the seventeenth of last month.

A wire transfer receipt.

Sender: Brad Mason.

Recipient: Mary Pruitt.

Amount: $300,000.00.

Memo: None.

The sending account ended in 4321. That was our household fund.

I stared at the string of zeros on the screen. Counted them three times.

Three hundred thousand dollars.

He'd taken the money we saved together and used it to bail out his intern. Three hundred thousand dollars' worth.

And when my father was in the ICU, he'd made me sign a promissory note at prime plus thirty percent.

I picked up my phone and photographed the receipt.

Then I kept digging.

I found a folder labeled "Miscellaneous." It was full of images. I clicked the first one.

A handwritten penalty slip. Pink stationery.

"Mr. Mason didn't eat his veggies today—one cuddle session revoked! —Your personal supervisor, Mary."

Dated six months ago.

The second one.

"Mr. Mason stayed up past midnight—penalty: one Chanel bag! No appeals accepted!"

The third.

"Mr. Mason looked at another girl for more than three seconds—penalty: take me to the movies this weekend AND pay for everything!"

There were dozens of them. Every single one was flirty and playful. Every single "punishment" was either a cute demand for affection or a request for a gift.

I stared at those slips.

And I thought about mine.

"Towels not folded to regulation. Fine: $200."

"Unauthorized consumption of premium groceries. Pay via QR code."

"Dishes washed but countertop not wiped. Minus 10 points."

I sat in his leather executive chair.

And I laughed.

Laughed until tears ran down my face.

So he wasn't born cold-blooded. He wasn't incapable of tenderness.

He'd simply given all his rules and rigidity to me. And all his indulgence and sweetness to Mary Pruitt.

I selected every image in the folder, zipped them into a single file, and sent it to my encrypted email. Then I cleared the sent history.

I opened my analytics software. As a data analyst, building relational models from massive datasets was what I did best.

I logged into the online banking portal for the account ending in 4321. He'd changed the password, but I was on his computer, and the browser had auto-saved his credentials.

Login successful.

Account balance: $3,450.50.

Three years. Over six hundred and fifty thousand dollars in our household fund.

Reduced to three thousand four hundred and fifty dollars.

I exported every transaction from the past three years. Saved them as a spreadsheet. Sent it to my email.

I finished everything and put the computer back exactly the way I'd found it.

Even the mouse hadn't moved a millimeter.

Then I picked up my cleaning rag and went to the bathroom to fish the hair out of the drain.

Three o'clock in the afternoon.

I was scrubbing the toilet.

My phone buzzed.

A WhatsApp message from Brad.

"I won't be home for dinner tonight. Firm event."

"Also, your points are short this month. Tomorrow's housework is all yours. And don't forget—interest on the IOU is due by the fifteenth."

I stared at the screen.

Typed one word back.

"Fine."

Monday.

I took a half day off work.

And went to the office of my college classmate, Oliver James.

Oliver had built a serious reputation handling marriage and family cases.

I slid the USB drive across the desk toward him.

"Take a look. Tell me if this is enough to leave him with nothing."

Oliver plugged the drive into his computer.

He went through it for over an hour.

The only sound in the office was the clicking of the mouse.

Finally, he leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.

"Gay, your husband is a real piece of work."

"How so?"

"This point system of his—legally speaking, it actually qualifies as a voluntary internal agreement between spouses. As long as it doesn't violate any mandatory legal provisions, it's enforceable."

"So the money he docked from me was legitimate?"

"On the surface, yes." Oliver pointed at the screen. "But his fatal mistake was transferring marital assets."

"The three hundred thousand."

"Exactly. Transferring a large sum of joint marital property to a third party without spousal consent. In legal terms, that's malicious dissipation of assets."

Oliver clicked open the images of those pink penalty slips.

"And then there's these. They serve as corroborating evidence of an illicit relationship between him and Mary Pruitt. There's no caught-in-the-act smoking gun, but combined with the three-hundred-thousand-dollar transfer, it forms a complete evidentiary chain."

"How much can I get back?"

"The three hundred thousand—you can demand full restitution. The gift was an unauthorized disposal of joint property, which makes it legally void."

"What about the rest of our money?"

"I went through the transaction records." Oliver flipped open several printed pages. "Beyond that three hundred thousand, over the past two years he's been buying her handbags, jewelry, and covering rent on a luxury apartment. Roughly another two hundred and fifty thousand, all pulled from the family fund."

I closed my eyes.

Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

He'd drained five hundred and fifty thousand of it.

Spent on another woman.

"If I file for divorce, how does the asset split work?" I asked.

"Given the severity of his misconduct—concealing and transferring marital assets—the court will award him a significantly reduced share. Possibly nothing at all."

Oliver studied me.

"Gay, when are you planning to lay your cards on the table?"

"Not yet." I opened my eyes. "He's up for Senior Partner at the firm next month, isn't he?"

Oliver blinked.

"How do you know that?"

"I overheard him on the phone at home. He said it was the most critical step in his career. That he couldn't afford a single piece of bad press."

Oliver smiled.

"Got it. You want to hit him where it hurts the most."

"He ran our marriage like a corporation," I said, rising to my feet. "So I'm going to give him a full-scale year-end audit."

After leaving Oliver's office, I went to the hospital.

My dad's condition had stabilized.

He'd been moved out of the ICU and into a regular room.

When I arrived, a caretaker was spooning oatmeal into his mouth.

"There's my girl." His face was still pale.

"Dad, how are you feeling?"