I hired a private investigator called Stephen Kemp online. With the wave of layoffs, there were plenty of people offering their services to make ends meet.

We didn't need to meet in person. We communicated over a chat app, and I gave him the names, addresses, and the situation.

To my surprise, Stephen replied: [Don't worry, bro. I've got this.]

[What do you mean?] I was curious about it.

[This line of work has been keeping me afloat all year. What do you think?]

He was so confident that he even reassured me, saying, [It's not a big deal. This is life.]

I was speechless. It wasn't like this was anything to be proud of. [Like I said, start by finding out who the guy is, and then track their movements together.]

I racked my brain trying to remember who that guy could be, but I couldn't. So, I sent the photo I had taken to the investigator and let him handle it.

He worked fast. Within two days, he had dug up the man's background.

The man was Patrick Hinton, who used to be a high school classmate of Liana.

Suddenly, I recalled some long-forgotten memories.

No wonder he looked familiar but I couldn't recognize him. I had heard the name Patrick from Liana before. She couldn't keep things to herself and eventually let it slip. Then she'd always add, "That was all in the past. Now I love you."

Back then, I thought she was adorably naive to even tell her current boyfriend something like that. Now, I just thought it was foolish.

Patrick was the most popular man in their class, and she chased him for three months before she finally got him. They were together for three years in high school. In the end, because of their majors, they separated. Patrick stayed in a local medical school while Liana went to a university out of town, where she met me.

I knew why he looked familiar. It was because Liana had shown me their high school graduation photo. It wasn't that I couldn't remember him, it was that he had aged so much that I didn't recognize him.

Due to a job transfer, Patrick had been seconded to a hospital in Washington six months ago, and the two of them rekindled their affair.

Patrick even had a housewife back home, raising two kids. It seemed that a doctor's income was high enough to support three people who didn't work.

I looked at their spending records over the past six months, including their hotel bookings. They usually spent time in cafés, upscale restaurants, and five-star hotels. They even went to seaside hotels in nearby cities.

The pain was like a knife cutting through my heart.

Because all of this was paid for with Liana's card!

I had been bearing the brunt of all the mortgage payments, just so she could have extra money to meet up with her ex.

I felt it so humiliating...

As I furiously gripped the stack of evidence of my wife's affair, searching the medicine cabinet for heart pills, my phone rang.

It was a call from Damien Conway, Liana's father. Over these past few years of marriage, whenever he called me, it was never for anything good.

He still hadn't repaid the 20 thousand dollars he borrowed from me last time. What was worse, when I married Liana, I gave them 360 thousand dollars as a wedding gift, and according to our local customs, they were supposed to return 88 thousand dollars to serve as Liana's gift. However, Damien dragged me into a small room and privately suggested not giving Liana the gift she deserved. He said Liana's younger brother, Kylan Conway, had been detained in some underground casino and couldn't get out, and they needed tens of thousands to ransom him.

Without the 88 thousand dollars, it wouldn't be enough.

I shouldered this burden alone and didn't tell Liana. 88 thousand dollars wasn't a lot, and I couldn't lose my wife over money.

I hadn't expected that after that, they seemed to have gotten a taste for it and gradually took more money from me, thinking they had found a sucker.

And why not? I was such a fool. The men of the Conway family saw me as an ATM, and Liana saw me as a landlord they could live with for free. She didn't even love me.

I answered the phone, and before I could say anything, the voice on the other end appeared, "Kolton, why did it take so long for you to pick up the phone?"