The Lie After Thanksgiving

After settling my son in, I drove alone to the apartment complex but didn't rush upstairs. Instead, I stayed in the car and opened the home surveillance feed on my phone.The cameras had been installed years ago, when my son was a toddler, to make it easier to keep an eye on him. I hadn't used them in ages, and only I knew the password.I scrubbed the timeline back to the day my son and I had left home.At 7 a.m., I had gotten up on time and made breakfast for Silas James and our child. I'd woken him in the process. He'd come out of the bedroom grumbling, bleary-eyed, and gone to wash up.By 8:30 a.m., Silas wheeled out the suitcase I'd packed overnight after we finished breakfast, then hugged our son and said goodbye to both of us before heading out.At 10 a.m., I'd locked the door and taken my son downstairs.At 11 a.m., the door opened again, and Silas' face reappeared on the screen, but he wasn't alone. A woman followed him inside.I knew her. She was Silas' colleague, Iris

It was the second day after she gave birth. She had no strength left and didn't feel like eating, so Silas drove across Portwell just to buy her a steaming bowl of seafood chowder.Her son and mine were born only one day apart.Tears fell onto my phone screen. I hurriedly wiped them away and continued to the next video.The third video was uploaded just the day before. The background was my home—mine and Silas'. Iris was wearing my pajamas, leaning against Silas' shoulder, her face soft with maternal tenderness as she watched the child play.Silas didn't show his face. One arm was wrapped around her, the other helping the child stack building blocks. I didn't need to see him to know—Silas must have been smiling gently.And what had I been doing at that time, with my son? I'd been in the countryside, at his parents' house, swamped all day, preparing the Thanksgiving dinner he wanted to serve his parents.The frost in my chest almost solidified when my phone suddenly rang. I answer

Silas clearly hadn't expected to see me there. When my voice came through the broadcast, he turned around stiffly, almost mechanically, staring at our son and me. And faced with my question, he couldn't form an answer at all."If I hadn't shown up, I'd never have seen such a loving little family scene, would I, Silas? Taking your mistress and your son out to have fun is what you've been busy with lately, huh?"Instantly, people around us stopped in their tracks, all eyes turning our way as they waited for what I'd say next.Silas also finally snapped out of his daze. He knew this wasn't the time to stand there frozen—he needed my forgiveness. Otherwise, everything he'd been planning would collapse in an instant. He didn't care whether Iris would be upset or whether this would scar his other son anymore at this point. He shook them off and ran straight toward me.But I had no interest in dragging this out now that the truth was exposed. I took my son's hand and turned to leave. But

Security arrived quickly and began carrying out my orders. Since Silas and Iris were tangled up in a scuffle and were impossible to separate, the head of security had them both hauled out together, dumped straight outside the company, and added to the blacklist. From that day on, neither of them would ever be allowed back in.I thought that would be the end of it. It wasn't until that evening, while I was discussing asset division with my lawyer, that I got a call from my brother and learned that Iris had dragged both our company and me onto the trending charts.I pulled out my phone and saw the headline blazing across the top of the trending list in bold letters: Violent Enforcement. Below it was a video of Iris and Silas being thrown out of the company earlier that day, both of them sitting on the ground in utter disgrace. Iris looked especially pitiful. The silk white dress she'd bought not long ago was torn full of holes from struggling with Silas. She sat right at the entrance o

Everything Silas and Iris were suffering now was nothing more than what they deserved. Still, I didn't want netizens dragging my son into it or speaking up for him online. A child should never be dragged into anything between the adults—even though, in all of this, he was the biggest victim, just like me.Because Silas stubbornly refused to sign the divorce papers, the divorce proceeded exactly as I'd anticipated and went through the courts. The evidence of his affair was airtight, and with public opinion pressing down on him as well, the process dragged on for several months before it was finally concluded. In the end, we were successfully divorced, and the court ruled that Silas would leave with nothing.Most of the assets under our names had been premarital property. The money Silas had earned over the years working at my family's company through my connections was also transferred back to me by the bank. Not only did he walk away empty-handed, but he was also ordered to compensat