Chapter 2

Leon's POV

I forced back my tears and tried to keep it together.

The ICU bills were high, so I still needed to earn money.

At the same time, I listed my and Allison's marital home for sale.

I was out on the streets peddling snacks when a prospective buyer contacted me. As he toured the house, he marveled at how much love I must have for life and complimented how meticulously clean it was.

When he noticed a familiar figure in a photograph, his eyes immediately lit up.

"Oh, so you're a close friend of Mrs. Welch!" he exclaimed. "Well, that makes doing business a whole lot easier.

"Mrs. Welch is a woman of true character. Any man who marries her is lucky. She's the type who'd willingly put everything she has on the line to support her husband's business venture."

My smile froze on my face. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Laughing, he explained, "Mr. Welch's business is booming right now. He's our biggest supplier, and honestly, I'm relying on him to put food on my table. Just name a price for this place, and I'll take it."

Clarence Welch?

The rough calluses on my hands suddenly felt like a sick joke.

From the rest of our conversation, I learned that Allison had embezzled my money, secretly funneled it to Clarence, and helped him become the largest shareholder in his company. All the while, she had watched me go bankrupt and left our family living in absolute poverty.

My heart throbbed painfully.

I quickly excused myself to the bathroom and splashed freezing water on my face, forcing myself to stay calm.

Allison had lost her voice right after giving birth to Noel. The doctors couldn't determine the cause, and I had been terrified she was suffering from postpartum depression. Because of that, I protected our family carefully.

Even when I got into a car crash, I never stopped working because I was afraid my child and wife would suffer.

There was a time when a car crash broke my leg, and I had to grit my teeth and go to some random clinic to have the bone set, just to save money. To this day, I still walked with a heavy limp.

Back then, I contentedly told myself that as long as I had a home to come back to, there was still hope.

But Allison never saw it that way. She went to such lengths, spending three years fighting back the urge to speak, just to cover up the fact that she was bankrolling Clarence. She did it all so she could step into her place as Mrs. Welch much more smoothly.

A bitter laugh escaped me.

I had treated her like the apple of my eye. In return, she subsidized Clarence with my money, all while treating me like an outsider and constantly keeping me at arm's length.

At the start, she was the one who had promised me a home and to be my wife. She had stepped into my life and made the vows at the altar, but now… she played a cruel joke on me at the most painful, devastating point of my life.

My tears spilled over uncontrollably.

It took me a long time to compose myself, and my voice was still thick with tears when I finally spoke.

When I sent the buyer off, he promised to pay 10% above market value out of respect for Allison. Each time he referred to her as"Mrs. Welch", it hurt like he was hurling stones at me.

The moment the paperwork was completed, I took the advance cash and rushed to pre-pay the hospital bills.

Allison was at the hospital entrance, sketching portraits for passersby to earn extra money. When she saw me, she quickly typed on her phone.

"We'll get through this together. Don't worry; Noel is going to be fine.

"The money will come eventually. I'm just so sorry I can't do more."

It was ironic.

I was about to head off to earn more money when Allison's phone rang. She got so excited that she nearly forgot she was supposedly mute and answered aloud.

But she quickly hung up and typed a message to me. "I have to take care of something. It's an emergency."

She was in such a desperate rush to leave that her customer got mad, grabbed her arm, and refused to let her go. Unable to explain herself, she simply returned all the money she had made that day to the customer.

It amounted to a few hundred dollars, which was equivalent to several days of me peddling my tricycle to deliver packages. But of course, that kind of money was nothing to her.

And this was the same woman who claimed she was doing everything she could to earn money for Noel.

Allison's words were riddled with holes. For three years, she had cut off all social ties and locked herself away like a recluse. But as it turned out, there was an exception to her isolation. It just wasn't me.

I had lost completely .

I walked into a nearby print shop, spent a dollar printing out a set of divorce papers, signed my name, and left it on her desk.