Chapter 2

The restaurant door swung open.

A middle-aged couple in their fifties walked in with warm smiles on their faces.

“Austin, hard at work in the restaurant again?”

“Mom, Dad? What brings you here?” Austin immediately went over to greet them.

“We brought you some soup.”

The woman set the insulated container on the table and took Austin’s hand. She examined him as though he were her most precious treasure.

“Just look at you. You lost even more weight. I told Sophia not to make you work so hard.”

Her husband added, “Sophia is too thoughtful. She bought us imported health supplements yesterday, too. What a waste of money.”

The woman nodded in agreement, then her voice softened with sympathy. “Sophia had such a hard life before. She married the wrong man and suffered terribly at the hands of that gambling-addict ex-husband of hers.”

Gambling addict? Ex-husband?

My hand jerked around the glass of water. Warm water spilled across the back of my hand, yet I felt nothing.

So this was what I had become in the eyes of their entire family. I had become a worthless man who abandoned his wife and child, a degenerate who could not stay away from gambling.

Austin’s mother continued to chatter. “Thankfully, those miserable days are behind her. Now that she is with our Austin, she can finally enjoy a proper life.”

As I listened to his parents praise him, Austin looked pleased, yet he pretended to be modest.

“Mom, that is all in the past. Let’s not bring it up.”

I watched their happy little family gathered together. Zach nestled in his grandmother’s arms while she covered him with kisses.

I stood there like an invisible stranger who had no place among them.

I needed to know more. I took a deep breath and forced myself to regain my composure.

I offered Austin a cigarette and acted as though we were simply shooting the breeze.

“Boss, you have a lovely family here. You and your wife have been married for a long time?”

Austin accepted the cigarette and lit it without hesitation. He took a drag before he answered, “Four years, maybe a little more. By the time I met Sophia, she had just finalized her divorce. She had a pretty rough time of it, all on her own.”

Four years. The date hit me like a thunderclap.

Back then, I had only just arrived overseas. I worked day and night and barely stopped to catch my breath. When I finally saved up my first substantial sum for our future, I wired every cent of it to Sophia immediately.

I remembered that day clearly. I even called her to let her know the money had come through and told her to use it to pay off our debts first.

She cried and said over the phone, “Honey, you’ve worked so hard.”

Austin’s father, William Chase, who had been listening, could not resist joining in to boast about his daughter-in-law.

“You can say that again. Sophia is one capable woman. She bought this entire restaurant outright with the money she secretly saved up herself. Did not make Austin lift a finger.”

A deafening roar went off inside my head. I wondered where Sophia had gotten that kind of money.

When we got married, I knew her family’s circumstances inside and out. Her parents were ordinary factory workers, and her own salary barely amounted to anything.

Now, at last, I understood.

My money had become the foundation of her new life. It funded the restaurant that now belonged to the two of them.

Everything I sacrificed became the bedrock of their comfortable little existence.

A violent cramp seized my stomach. The pain was so intense I could barely straighten my back.

Austin still basked in his own good fortune. He raised his wrist and showed off the gleaming watch he wore.

“Hey, what do you think of this watch?”

“Sophia gave it to me for our wedding anniversary last year. It cost over 50,000 dollars.”

It felt like a cruel joke.

Last year, I spent an entire month trapped in a lightless underground mine. I worked around the clock to earn a 50,000-dollar bonus for finishing a job ahead of schedule.

By the time I finally came out, I felt as though I had shed an entire layer of skin. The sunlight was so harsh that my eyes streamed with tears.

Back then, I actually felt happy. I thought Sophia would have a little less to worry about with the extra money.