My mother was lying in a hospital bed with a brain hemorrhage, waiting on emergency surgery, and the half a million dollars my wife's little assistant brought over to save her life turned out to be a stack of worthless arcade tokens.

I called Alberta Pruitt like a man losing his mind, begging her to cover the surgery.

The one who answered was that assistant of hers, Wilfred Delgado.

His voice was all innocence.

"Mr. James, you must be mistaken. What I handed you was five hundred thousand in cash. How could it possibly turn into arcade tokens?"

"Ms. Pruitt is taking her afternoon nap, and her schedule is packed after that. Please don't disturb her."

So I ran from one friend to the next, borrowing, taking out loans online, until I finally scraped the surgery fee together.

But because the operation was delayed, my mother survived only to be left paralyzed from head to toe.

For the next three days, I sat by her bed in that hospital while Alberta took Wilfred out for candlelit dinners, yacht rides, and hot spring resorts.

Three days later, I sold off my shares in Alberta's company and got ready to leave.

——

By the time I got home, Alberta was lounging on the sofa without a care in the world, Wilfred kneading her shoulders.

She saw me and frowned.

"Your mom just got sick, didn't she? Why are you only coming back now?"

I didn't answer. I walked over with my travel bag, dumped the five hundred thousand in arcade tokens out in front of her.

My voice shook.

"Alberta, my mother needed that surgery money to stay alive, and you let Wilfred fob me off with five hundred thousand in arcade tokens? How is that any different from murder?"

"Do you have any idea? Because of these tokens, her surgery was delayed, and now she's paralyzed for the rest of her life!"

Alberta's expression shifted, just slightly.

Behind her, Wilfred spoke up, perfectly calm:

"At the time, the company needed cash for year-end bonuses. Ms. Pruitt knew your mother had surgery scheduled, so she had me bring you five hundred thousand right away."

"Mr. James, are you trying to say I pocketed that five hundred thousand and swapped it out for arcade tokens?"

Alberta cut in immediately:

"Wilfred knows exactly where the line is. There's no way he'd ever switch five hundred thousand for arcade tokens."

Then she laid it out coldly:

"And even if you really did end up with five hundred thousand in tokens, don't I give you fifty thousand a month for living expenses? Pulling together five hundred thousand wouldn't be hard for you at all."

"So…"

She stared at me, her tone turning ugly.

"Your mom isn't paralyzed at all, is she? You just want to smear Wilfred. He's only my assistant. Why are you so dead set against him?"

Her accusation hit me like a bucket of ice water poured straight over my head. The cold went all the way through me.

The way Alberta and I met was something out of a trashy drama.

She'd gotten drunk at a bar and two thugs were shoving her around, and I'd grabbed a brick and saved her.

She was barely conscious. I couldn't get an address out of her, so all I could do was take her to a hotel.

When I carried her into the room, she suddenly wrapped herself around me.

When she woke the next morning, the look in her eyes had none of the heat from the night before.

What she said stunned me.

"Since we slept together, we'll go register the marriage right now."

Out of a sense of responsibility toward her, I ended up registering and marrying her.

It wasn't until after the wedding that I learned she was the CEO of a company, worth hundreds of millions.

She signed thirty percent of the company's shares over to me, with one condition: I was never to set foot in the company's operations or management.

She wanted me to stay home like a good boy and play the househusband.

I fought it. But no matter how hard I tried, I was just an auto mechanic, a working stiff, and everything I earned wasn't a fraction of what Alberta pulled in running her company. So I accepted my place.

We settled into a by-the-book married life. I handled the home, she handled the world. I was as gentle and attentive to her as I knew how to be, and she treated me with cool, distant courtesy.

I thought we'd spend our whole lives like that. Until Alberta hired that male assistant.

And just like that, everything changed.

While Alberta was at work, I could barely reach her. Wilfred was always in the way.

When she came home, she stayed glued to the phone with Wilfred, video calls, the two of them laughing nonstop.

My monthly allowance had dropped from fifty thousand to two.

I'd argued with Alberta once about whether she'd gotten too close to Wilfred, while turning ice-cold toward me.

She'd just looked at me then, calm, her face empty of anything.

"Nathan, you only married into this family because you played dirty. Don't act sweet after you've already cashed in."

"Besides, Wilfred and I are just boss and assistant. We happen to get along. You're imagining things."

That was when it hit me. Whatever we had came purely from that one reckless night. She had never really loved me.

So I stopped arguing. I stopped asking about the two thousand, too.

But over the past six months, Alberta had gone further and further. Wilfred's feed was crammed with proof of how close they were.

Hot springs together, hiking to catch the sunrise, fancy synchronized ski runs.

And every time Wilfred and I clashed, Alberta took his side without a second's hesitation.

Just like today.

Every time, the cold of it stole the breath right out of my chest.

But at least I'd already booked tomorrow's flight to the States. I was taking my mother there for treatment, and I was leaving Alberta behind.

Right here. Right now.

I looked at Wilfred, standing behind Alberta.

His hands were still resting on her shoulders, his eyes daring me.

I stared at him.

"Alberta didn't give me arcade tokens. And I'm damn sure I'm not throwing dirt on you."

"Which means you're the one who swapped the cash for tokens, and because of that my mother's surgery was delayed and she's paralyzed from the neck down."

I couldn't hold it anymore. I lunged and slammed my fist into Wilfred's face.

But the next instant, a wine bottle smashed into the back of my skull.

I turned my head and saw the loathing twisting Alberta's face.

"Nathan, I won't let you hurt Wilfred."

She shoved past me and wrapped her arms around him, cooing soft words of concern.

And I just swayed, then went down.

When I came to, I was still lying on the freezing floor. The enormous mansion held no one but me.

The back of my head was damp. I'd clearly been bleeding.

Alberta had simply left me there.

What she'd done had sunk below even the lowest bar I'd ever set for her.

But none of it mattered anymore.

I glanced at my phone. In the post Wilfred had just put up, Alberta was nursing him in a hospital VIP room.

Dressing his wound with her own hands. Mouth to mouth, spooning porridge into him.

I laughed and started packing.

I was going abroad this time, and I wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.

So everything that could be thrown out, I threw out.

Including my wedding photos with Alberta, every gift we'd given each other across two years of marriage.

Last of all, I dropped my wedding ring into the toilet and flushed it away.

When it was done, I picked up my suitcase to leave.

Then the whole mansion plunged into darkness. The power had gone out.

I was still puzzling over it when two shadows appeared, closing in fast.

I sensed the danger and snatched up the suitcase to shield myself, but they struck me down with brutal precision and dragged me off.

Two masked men.

They threw me into a battered van, gagged my mouth, and then one of them backhanded me across the face while the other filmed.

They captured the most humiliating sight of my entire life, beating my face swollen, beating it bloody.

The bones in my face felt close to cracking.

"Ninety-nine slaps. That's enough." I don't know how long it had gone on, my face nearly pulped, before the one filming finally called a stop.

The one who'd been slapping me pried my eyelids open, forcing me to meet his eyes.

His voice was ice.

"Wilfred's our buddy. You ever lay a hand on him again, we'll bury you."

I wasn't stupid. This whole thing had Alberta written all over it.

The punch I'd thrown at Wilfred had earned me this, and she'd sent these men to do it.

The second they shoved me out of the car, Alberta came rolling back with her people.

She looked at my face, raw and bloody, and for once in her life she squeezed out two tears for me.

"Nathan, I'm taking you to the hospital right now."

"Don't worry. I will find whoever did this to you and put them behind bars."

The pain had me drifting in and out, so I had no choice but to let her do as she pleased.

And then she actually put me in the same VIP room as Wilfred.

Wilfred took one look at the wounds on my face and sneered.

"Mr. James, wouldn't you call this karma? One punch at me, and look at you now. Beaten to a pulp."

Alberta gave him a playful little smack of mock reproach.

"Wilfred, did you dip your mouth in poison or something?"

Wilfred pushed his luck.

"What can I say? One kiss from you, Alberta, and you'd cry yourself to death from how sweet it is."

Her face shifted at that, and she shot me a slightly panicked glance.

But when she saw me sitting there, paying the two of them no mind at all, her expression darkened instead.

Once the doctor had finished cleaning the wounds on my face, Alberta turned to me.

"Nathan, not only did you frame Wilfred today, you hit him. You owe him an apology."

I didn't waste a look on Wilfred and his smug face. I just stared straight at Alberta.

"Haven't you already settled the score for him?"

"He handed me fifty thousand in arcade tokens for my mother's surgery. That's a fact. Why would I apologize?"

"Or is it that you love Wilfred so much you can't tell right from wrong anymore?"

"What are you talking about? Shut up!" Alberta was furious.

She lunged at me and slapped me across the face, palm cracking against the wound.

The bandage they'd just wrapped came undone.

The pain was unbearable.

But I would not let this woman see me flinch.

My voice came out cold.

"One hundred slaps. Perfect. A nice round number."

"Alberta, I want a divorce."

This time I saw it. She really did panic, just for a moment.

But she pulled herself together fast.

"What hundred slaps? You're not making any sense."

"Nathan, I married you. I'm not divorcing you. So you can relax."

Wilfred had been watching the whole show with a hidden grin.

At Alberta's words, his face stiffened, and when his eyes came back to me, they were full of calculation.

That night, through the first half, Alberta tended to me without stopping. She fed me sips of water and even trimmed my nails.

She told me that whether or not my mother was truly paralyzed, she would hire two caregivers to look after her properly.

What was she doing?

She didn't want the divorce, so now she was putting on a performance?

I didn't have the energy for her. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.

Who could have guessed that within minutes Alberta had drifted over to Wilfred's side.

The two of them murmured and flirted, growing more and more intimate, looking for all the world like a couple.

The next day.

After I woke, I went to the ICU to see my mother.

There was no avoiding it. She saw the wounds on my face.

She looked at me, aching with worry.

"Nathan... who did this to you? Was it Alberta...?"

I gripped my mother's hand and forced out a smile.

"Mom, it's just a few scratches. It's nothing."

"Tonight I'm taking you away, to the States for treatment. Trust me, it won't be long before you're fully better."

The words had barely left my mouth when the door flew open with a kick. Alberta walked in, Wilfred and two bodyguards at her back.

I was about to throw them out when Wilfred pointed at me and said,

"Nathan, did you steal Alberta's project proposal? Do you have any idea how important that project is to us?"