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?"

"I didn't hear it ring earlier. What's going on?" I couldn't bring myself to be patient anymore.

"Well... So, it's about Kylan. Kolton, do you have 200 thousand dollars in cash on hand? This time, Kylan was playing some game online and got tricked again. Now he's even mortgaged our house in the hometown!" In Damien's eyes, whatever Kylan did wrong, it was someone else who led him astray or tricked him. He thought Kylan was excellent in every way. Even secretly mortgaging the house was a sign of his competence.

Wait, so the Conway family's old house was in Kylan's name? Otherwise, if the property deed and ID card didn't match, he wouldn't have been able to mortgage it.

So that meant Liana had nothing in the Conway family.

"200 thousand dollars? How could I have that much money? You knew it..."

I was shocked! I thought their little schemes amounted to borrowing one or two thousand dollars at most. I didn't expect that they'd ask for 200 thousand dollars. They were really overestimating me.

"Didn't you get a promotion and a raise last year? You said yourself you'd be getting year-end bonuses, and that'd be three or four hundred thousand dollars, right?" Damien said anxiously on the phone.

Good grief, they were even calculating all my savings. Forcing myself to stay calm, I came up with a plan. "Please calm down. The bonus was given in stock shares, so I can't come up with that much cash right away. He got scammed online, right? How about we call the police?"

This was the most reasonable advice I could offer as a brother-in-law. But just as I expected, it was hard to convince someone hell-bent on doing the wrong thing. As soon as Damien heard me mention calling the police, he flew into a rage, cursing me out over the phone for a good twenty minutes before calming down. He accused me of coming up with lousy ideas just to avoid paying.

I coaxed him, saying I'd try to figure out a way to get the money together in the next couple of days. Only then did he hang up.

I felt it wasn't worth it, all these years of enduring everything in silence. Each time I compromised, it only made them push their limits further.

So I found them a lending platform and told them I'd thoroughly checked it out. It was safe and reliable. I assured them they could borrow as much as they wanted, and I'd take care of the repayments later.

Damien was too old to understand these things, so he had his precious son, Kylan, handle it. Kylan was useless at everything except squandering money. Knowing I was backing him up, he completed the procedures fast, using both his and his father's ID cards.

After they got the money, Damien sent me a text message thanking me for my years of secret support, saying I was so helpful to them. He even urged me and Liana to start having children soon. In the end, he reminded me that the monthly loan repayment was 8 thousand dollars.

I remained calm, continuing my investigation work.

After the excuse of frequent overtime, Liana's lies had escalated to the point of frequent short business trips. What used to be just after-work meetups had now turned into a constant need to be with Patrick, which was like she couldn't wait to be by his side at all times. Even waiting in a hotel for a whole day until Patrick finished work seemed to bring her joy.

I couldn't even imagine what my wife, who often gave me the cold shoulder, looked like when she was fawning over someone else, waiting for him to get off work.

After we got married, if I was even ten minutes late to pick her up because of traffic, she'd give me the cold shoulder for a long time and scold me for not leaving earlier.

Now, I just tried to voice a minor complaint, "Honey, have you been too busy lately? We haven't had sex for a long time..."

Her face instantly darkened. "I'm at the peak of my career. Are you only allowed to get promotions and raises while I'm not allowed to succeed?"

I'd only said one sentence, yet she always seemed to have some big retort waiting. It seemed when someone didn't like you, even your breathing became a nuisance.

"Of course not. Fine. Just make sure you'll take good care of yourself, sweetheart. Looks like you've gained weight again. Is that stress weight?"

She shot me a glare and didn't reply, continuing to pack her clothes into her suitcase.