Chapter 2

Allyson carried on openly flirting with Joe right in our home.

Every word cut me to the bone, but my face didn't betray a flicker of emotion. Only my trembling hands, my throat closing up, and the wave of nausea rolling through my stomach told me I was enduring something inhumane.

My lawyer wrote back. [I need seven business days. Please give me a little time.]

Seven days. On an ordinary day, buried in the lab, they would have flown by. Now, every day dragged like a year.

I looked down at my hands, permanently bleached pale from years in the lab, and thought about how my eyesight had gone from perfect to severely nearsighted from all that strain, about the faint ringing that never quite left my ears anymore.

Every ounce of effort I'd poured, bled, and sacrificed for suddenly felt like a joke.

I remembered ten years ago, when the Fowler family had been on the verge of bankruptcy. Allyson hadn't had the money to buy the patents she needed, no way to manufacture the drugs, and the stress had turned her hair gray in a single night.

I'd studied pharmaceutical research, and so that she'd have something to produce, I'd shut myself in the lab day after day.

Years of grinding effort were the only reason she had the company she had now.

She used to say I was the most precious lifeline of her whole existence.

Funny, thinking back on it now.

Since she didn't cherish the hard-won life she had, I'd just have to sever that lifeline myself.

That night, I went to the lab and dismissed every researcher on my team.

Standing in the empty lab, I felt a tangle of things I couldn't quite name.

My phone chimed. In the dead silence, the sound of a message coming in felt unusually sharp.

It was a taunting message from Joe.

The photo showed him lying bare-shouldered in bed with Allyson, who was asleep beside him.

[Mr. Wolfe, I'm taking good care of your wife for you again.]

[Allyson told me you're okay with us being together, so how about you send me a year-end bonus?]

[Taking care of a woman is hard physical work, you know. She's acting like she's never even seen a man before.]

[You have no idea how much energy she puts into it with me.]

[I'm working hard here, so throw a little bonus my way.]

Blood roared in my ears. I used my second phone to record video evidence and sent it straight to my lawyer.

My silence only read to Joe as weakness.

Then our son, Francis Wolfe, spiked a sudden fever and ended up in the hospital.

When I got to the hospital, Joe was there, opening up a bowl of steaming chicken soup, telling Francis, "Be a good boy and eat something, even if you don't have an appetite. It'll help you get better faster."

Allyson stood off to the side, her doting gaze drifting from Joe to Francis. "See how much your dad loves you."

It felt like a knife to the chest. We weren't even divorced yet, and she was already letting our son call another man "Dad."

"Yeah, Dad loves me the most!" Francis's voice rang out, warm and happy, and it hit me like a fatal blow.

My blood ran cold. Hearing my own son call Joe "Dad" with my own ears, my breath caught in my throat.

Joe saw me walk in. His eyes flashed with open provocation before he put on a gentle, easygoing tone. "Steve, you're here. Come feed our boy."

Francis didn't spare me a glance. He turned to Joe instead, whining, "I want you to feed me, Papa Joe. I like it when you do it."

He glanced at me, a note of disdain creeping into his voice. "All the other dad does is run experiments. He doesn't know how to take care of anybody."

"I like this dad taking care of us better."

My expression went cold. I stared at Francis. "What did you just call him?"

Joe put on a show of understanding, needling me further. "Steve, don't hold it against him, he's just a six-year-old kid.

"It's just a word; he doesn't mean anything by it. Don't take it to heart."