Chapter 5

After Lucas told Lily to keep her eyes on the road, she brushed him off and leaned in closer to tease him anyway.

While they were messing around in the front seat, the car swerved off course and slammed straight into a roadside tree.

In that moment, everything finally clicked: I understood why Lucas had finalized our divorce so early, yet never officially married Lily.

Lily was clearly playing him, but Lucas was totally blind to it. Or maybe he knew all along and was just completely hooked on the illusion.

"The DNA testing will take some time," Mr. Fletcher added over the line, "We should have the official results back in about three days."

I nodded. Just as I was about to hang up, another thought crossed my mind. "I need you to track down a child for me, too."

Doing the math, their kid would have been born right around this time, probably three or four years old by now. In my past life, Lucas used to make up all sorts of excuses every weekend to roll himself out of the house alone. He was definitely going to visit their son.

I gave Mr. Fletcher the locations Lucas frequented most, then swung by a clinic to get a full physical before freezing every single bank account under my name.

This time around, everything was just beginning. I was healthy, completely free from the heart failure caused by grinding through three jobs in my past life, and Lucas hadn't managed to bleed my savings dry yet.

That evening, I went home by myself for the very first time, completely dropping my so-called wife duties. Sensing that something was off, Lucas called my phone. The second his name popped up on my screen, I rejected the call.

A few minutes later, he posted a long rant on social media.

He whined endlessly about how much he had sacrificed for me, claiming that now that he was paralyzed because of me, I was heartlessly abandoning him. To milk as much pity as possible, he even uploaded his official medical diagnosis along with a tragic, exhausted photo of himself sitting in a wheelchair.

What he did not realize was that Lily's reflection was captured clear as day in the polished metal armrest of the wheelchair.

If you zoomed in close on one of the pictures, you could even catch Lily leaning over to kiss his cheek.

He was demanding my money and cursing my name, while showering another woman with all his love and my hard-earned cash. Lucas really thought he was the master puppeteer, playing everyone for fools.

The comment section was full of people grabbing their popcorn. Nobody noticed the slip-up in the photo. Instead, everyone offered him sweet words of comfort while tearing me apart with the filthiest insults, calling me a heartless monster.

I ignored the noise completely and blocked Lucas' number.

Over the next two days, life went on as usual. However, Lucas seemed to go completely off the deep end, blasting me online every single day. He even posted screenshots showing I had blocked him, playing the innocent victim and claiming I had a guilty conscience. Clueless mutual friends quickly took his side, flooding my inbox to lecture me about giving him a second chance.

I didn't bother offering a single explanation. I just quietly waited for the lab results on the third day.

To my absolute relief, the lab confirmed the match that afternoon, and Mr. Fletcher tracked down the child's whereabouts on the exact same day.

…

Before I could even go looking for Lucas, he showed up at my front door early that morning, either because he had run out of cash for the hospital or realized things were spiraling out of his control.

He didn't come alone. Standing right behind him were his furious parents, along with my own mom and dad.

Unlike my in-laws, who were practically barking with self-righteous anger, my parents stood behind them looking thoroughly guilty and hesitant.

"You guys take a good look at your daughter!" my mother-in-law, Brenda Whitmore, spat the second the door opened, saliva flying everywhere, "Is this how she treats my son?

"What sickens me even more is that she went behind my son's back, filed for a secret divorce, and threw him away the second he got hurt!"

A cold laugh bubbled up in my chest as I processed her words.

Lucas really outdid himself with this twisted narrative.

Since marriage registry records weren't open to the public, none of them actually knew the real truth.

My parents lowered their voices, trying to keep the peace. "It's not our place to meddle in their marriage. Since things have gotten this far, we're willing to pay financial compensation to make up for it."