Chapter 4

Reading the text left me feeling completely drained. I tossed my phone onto the coffee table and collapsed backward into the couch.

How could a man be this deeply unhinged?

He was well into his 40s, yet he had spent the last two decades roleplaying as a spoiled prince.

Thinking back to Hannah's enabling behavior, I realized that she was largely to blame for this monster.

Alicia bombarded my phone with messages all night, but I didn't reply to a single one.

Her last text came in at 3:00 am. "I finally see how messed up my family is, but I can't just leave my dad right now. Please give me some time."

I read that message five times before locking my screen.

The next morning at 8:00 am, a frantic pounding on my door jarred me awake.

"Open up, thief! Open the door now!"

Mike's voice pierced through the security door. It was so loud that it probably set off every sound-activated light in the building.

Rubbing my eyes, I dragged myself out of bed and peered through the peephole.

Mike stood there with his chin tilted up, looking furious and completely determined.

After taking a deep breath, I unlocked the door and opened it.

The moment he saw me, he hurled a stack of documents right at my face. "You stole company documents! Those are confidential files my wife trusted me to keep safe! You're a corporate spy!"

Papers scattered all over the floor, a few sharp edges narrowly missing my eyes.

I looked down at the mess.

Confidential files? They were just a few ordinary copies of meeting minutes, without even an official company seal on them.

"Are you quite finished?" My voice was deadpan.

"I'm not!" he shrieked, stomping his feet. "You're a thief, and I'm calling the cops to lock you up!"

"Go ahead."

I spoke those two words softly, but it was enough to make him choke on his next breath.

Right in front of him, I pulled out my phone and dialed the police. "Hello, I'd like to report someone falsely accusing me of corporate espionage. Please send an officer over to handle this—"

Mike lunged forward to grab my phone, but I took a step back, causing him to sprawl across the entryway.

That was exactly when Hannah and Alicia arrived.

Both of them were in formal suits, clearly having rushed straight from the office. Their expressions were equally grim.

As Hannah took in the papers littered everywhere and her husband sobbing on the floor, the veins at her temples throbbed violently.

"What are you making a scene over now?" she bellowed for the first time.

Mike scrambled up from the floor and threw himself toward her. "He stole from us! Look, honey! He threw our confidential files all over the floor!"

Alicia stormed forward, scooped up the papers, and flipped through them. Her face turned an ashen shade of fury. "Dad, these are just the minutes from last week's routine meeting. They aren't even classified!"

"If I say they're confidential, they're confidential!"

"Shut up!"

It was the first time Alicia had ever yelled at him. "He's our business partner! Why would he even want this stuff? Our entire project is signed with his family's company! How can he steal from his own business?

"And you claim he stole them, but aren't you the one who brought these papers out of the house?"

Mike shrank back from her shout. His lips trembled as tears streamed down his face.

I walked over from the doorway, bent down to gather the remaining papers one by one, and stacked them neatly. Then, I said casually, "If anyone's guilty of stealing company files here, it's you."

Mike snapped his head up, glaring at me with pure venom.

He lunged to strike me again, but Hannah firmly caught him by the wrist.

Her face had shifted from furious red to deathly pale.

As she looked at the man who had cried his way through the last 20 years, her voice sounded as hoarse as sandpaper scraping across a table as she said, "If you push this any further, we're getting a divorce. And Alicia will cut ties with you for good."