Chapter 2

My first thought after getting the money wasn’t to buy myself a purse. It was to replace Ethan’s car.

He drove a used Honda whose air conditioner had been broken for three years. Driving it in the summer felt like sitting inside a sauna.

I bought him a Mercedes. The moment he sat in the driver’s seat, his eyes turned red, and he told me, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

At the time, I felt that everything had been worth it.

But I didn’t know that while I was hospitalized and hooked up to an IV, Ethan had contacted Madison through a friend.

Madison had been his goddess in college, the belle of the foreign-language department. It had taken him two years to win her over.

The year they graduated, Madison received her Canadian immigration visa and left without hesitation.

Ethan told me they had broken up amicably,

but later, I heard from one of their mutual friends

that on the day Madison left, Ethan drank an entire bottle of red wine in the dorm and threw up all night.

He had never deleted her contact information.

I didn’t know when they had started talking again.

But I guessed it had been while I was hospitalized with my bleeding ulcer.

I spent every day either receiving an IV or sleeping, with barely enough energy to speak to him.

He came to the hospital every day, stayed for ten minutes, and left, saying, “Get some rest. Don’t worry about things at home.”

At the time, I thought he was being considerate.

Now that I thought about it, he had probably been rushing off to keep someone else company.

The truth didn’t come out because of that photo.

The photo was the fuse, but it wasn’t the explosive.

The real explosive was what I found when I checked the accounts.

Our company’s financial director was a woman everyone called Ms. Rivera. I had hired her, and she had always treated me well.

That day, she called me, her voice lowered.

“Claire, are you handling an equity transfer lately?”

I said no.

She asked, “Then why did someone come to the company last week with your power of attorney and a copy of your identification documents, asking to access your equity records?”

The blood rushed straight to my head.

I asked who it was.

Ms. Rivera said, “A woman who claimed to be your authorized representative. Your name was signed on the power of attorney, but the handwriting looked strange to me, so I told her I needed to verify it with you personally and sent her away.”

I hung up and immediately called Ethan.

He didn’t answer.

I called again, but he still didn’t answer.

I drove home, checking the security-camera footage from our house on the way.

There was a camera in our entryway. Ethan had said he installed it “for safety,” but now it seemed more likely he had wanted to monitor what time I came home.

I went through the footage from the previous week.

At two in the afternoon on Wednesday, Ethan brought a woman home.

The woman wore a mask and a hat, so I couldn’t see her face clearly.

They stayed in the living room for half an hour, and Ethan took something from the safe in his study and handed it to her.

As she left, the woman changed her shoes in the entryway and briefly removed her hat.

I took a screenshot and enlarged it.

It was Madison.

I sat in the car for a long time.

Then I picked up my phone and searched for information about Madison after her return.

Someone had posted photos of her attending an alumni gathering on Instagram, with the caption, “Madison just got back from Toronto. Single and open to introductions.”

Someone had commented to ask what kind of work she did now, and she had personally replied, “I’m taking some time to rest. No rush.”

No rush.

Of course she wasn’t in a rush.

Someone was giving her money. Why would she be?

I parked in the garage and sat in the driver’s seat, going over everything in my mind.

Ethan had probably reconnected with Madison around the time I began receiving equity incentives.

He knew how many shares I owned and how much they were worth.

He had never held any position in my company, so he couldn’t get his hands on those shares.

But he could manipulate me into signing a transfer agreement.

I thought of the “capital increase and share expansion” contract from last week.

He had given it to me to sign, but I hadn’t.

So he withdrew it and forged my signature instead.