A Marriage Born of Lies

My son Noah and I had just stepped into the room when the dim light made us stop. "Daddy, it's so dark in here."

Noah hugged his Transformer action figure, looking at me terrified.

I pressed the light switch several times before the bulb finally flickered on.

There were two low-quality beds, one nightstand, and a squat toilet in the bathroom. A layer of dust covered the floor.

Other than that, the room was bare.

It was no better than a cheap motel room that cost less than a hundred dollars a night.

I frowned and looked back at the lavishly decorated hallway outside. For a second, it felt like I was looking at two different worlds.

I had booked an executive suite for five hundred and eighty dollars a night. What was going on here? It was bad enough that the room was at the basement level, but why did it look like a basement too?

I was about to call the front desk when Noah walked inside and opened the mini fridge in the corner and took out a bottle of water. "Daddy, I'm thirsty."

It was only bottled water, so I let him drink it. I nodded as I held up my phone to call the front desk with one hand and rubbed my temple with the other.

I called several times, but no one answered.

Beep...

The busy tone only made me more irritated.

Noah suddenly started coughing seriously. At first, I did not think much of it, but his cough grew worse and worse.

His voice turned hoarse as he cried for help. "Daddy... my throat hurts... something's stuck!"

"Noah?!" I dropped my phone and rushed over, patting his back. But even after I used the Heimlich maneuver, he kept coughing until his face turned bright red. "How did you choke this badly? All you drink is water, right?!"

Noah's face kept getting redder, and panic started to overwhelm me.

In a panic, I picked up the bottle beside him and saw things floating in the water. I held it up to the light and realized they were pieces of a torn colored contact lens.

Noah was getting worse, and my calls still would not go through, so I used the hotel landline and kept calling the front desk.

When the call finally connected, the man at the front desk said lazily, "Hello? Who is this?"

I could no longer hold back my temper after a long, exhausting trip, and now having to face what was happening. "What's wrong with your hotel? I want to file a complaint! The room is bad enough, but why is there something in the bottled water your hotel provides? My son is getting sick right now! Send someone from the infirmary immediately!"

The front desk clerk's tone changed at once.

"Sir, that's not fair. The executive suite you booked was unavailable, and we even gave you a special upgrade. Why are you blaming us instead?"

I tried to calm my son while almost roaring at him. "I remember your name tag," said Sean, right? What kind of attitude is that? You say I'm blaming you? If anything happens to my son, will you take responsibility? Because of your hotel's poor management, my son drank your bottle of contaminated water. I want to see your manager!"

Sean sneered. "Why are you asking for the manager in the middle of the night? Do you have proof that it's our bottled water? I've seen plenty of men like you. You're just another stay-at-home dad who lives off his wife and tries to get the room comped. Stop making a fuss!"

This was ridiculous!

Then I faintly heard a familiar woman's voice on the other end. "Enough. There are plenty of cheap men who spend their wives' money and still try to save a few dollars. Just send him away, Sean. As for his son, I doubt anything's wrong. If it were serious, wouldn't he have gone to the hospital already? Who is he trying to scam?"

That voice was so familiar.

It was my wife, Nina!

She was the general manager of this hotel.

"Nina!" I roared, but the call was cut off.

It was getting more and more painful for Noah, so I rushed out to find hotel staff and asked her to bring a first aid kit. But when the housekeeping supervisor was here, her expression was cold as she threw a service agreement at me. "Sorry, regular guests are not entitled to medical services."

On the last page of the Hotel Service Rules, Nina's signature stood out.

"I booked an executive suite, but I'm still a regular guest?" My voice turned into a growl as I suppressed my anger. I could hardly believe this.

Then, I took out the obsidian signet ring passed down through the Lawson family. "Call an ambulance right now!"

At first, the housekeeping supervisor thought I had lost my mind. But after she checked the Lawson family crest on the ring, she cried out in shock. "Isn't this the signet ring that's owned by the head of the Lawson family?!"

In every Lawson property, seeing that ring was the same as seeing the current leader of the family.