CHAPTER 5
Nina walked out of the bank. Her ears were still ringing, and a deadening emptiness settled in her chest.
She knew she was supposed to feel anger, rage, fury, but inside there was only numbness.
She got into the car but didn’t touch the steering wheel. One second passed. Then two. Then ten. She just sat there, staring at one point, trying to understand what she was supposed to do next.
She knew she couldn’t go home right now. She wasn’t ready to see him. She couldn’t look Frank in the eyes, couldn’t sit at the same table with him pretending she didn’t know anything. She needed time.
Nina quickly typed a message:
“Frank, I went to see Daphne. I haven’t seen her in two weeks and want to see her. Don’t wait up for me tonight.”
Sent.
He’d believe it. She really was insanely attached to her daughter, and she still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that Daphne had been living in another city for three months now.
The reply came almost immediately:
“Okay. Give her my love.”
Nina let out a short, bitter huff.
Now came the hardest part.
She dialed her daughter’s number and lifted the phone to her ear. Her heart was pounding as if she were about to do something terrible.
“Mom, hi!” Daphne answered right away. There was so much lightness in her voice that something inside Nina seized painfully.
Her daughter had no idea what was happening in their family right now.
And Nina desperately wanted her to stay in that blissful ignorance for as long as possible. Daphne was all she had left.
Nina forced a smile into her voice, trying to sound casual.
“Hi, sweetheart. How are you? How’s college?”
“Oh, Mom, don’t even ask. Studying for my first finals is killing me,” Daphne laughed, and Nina’s throat tightened.
Her daughter was there, in another city, living her own life, thinking everything was fine with her parents. And Nina’s world was crumbling piece by piece.
“You’ll get through it,” Nina said, trying to sound upbeat. “You’re smart.”
“Thanks,” Daphne yawned. “So why’d you call?”
Nina swallowed, struggling not to let her voice betray how bad she felt.
“I just wanted to hear you.”
“That’s sweet. But strange. Did something happen?”
“No, no,” Nina answered quickly. “Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask. If Dad calls, let’s say I’m with you.”
A short pause followed on the other end.
“Uh… why?” Daphne asked in confusion.
“I want to surprise him,” Nina lied, praying her daughter wouldn’t sense the hollow ring.
“Hm. Suspicious,” Nina could almost picture her squinting. Daphne was so much like Frank, even in her expressions. “All right, Mom. A surprise is a surprise.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” Nina smiled, even though her eyes were already burning with tears.
Daphne kept talking about something else, and Nina listened to her voice, feeling like her heart was literally being torn apart.
They said goodbye. Nina ended the call quickly, no longer able to hold it in.
She covered her face with her hands, sat in the car, and gave herself exactly five seconds. Wiped away the tears. Took a deep breath. Turned on the navigation.
She needed time to sort everything out.
Nina drove to a high-end hotel. For a few days, she’d hide there from her husband and strategize. She’d consult with legal counsel; clarity would follow.
In the end, this wasn’t the end of the world. Everything could have been catastrophic if she’d found out the truth too late. At least she’d stopped the share transfer, and the company would remain hers no matter what. Which meant she’d have money.
And Frank could go straight to his Vivian.
She suddenly caught herself on a strange thought.
She’d never been madly in love with Frank.
She wasn’t the kind of woman who looked at her husband with starry eyes, who trembled at a single touch.
They’d been partners more than anything.
Friends. Two people who’d lived through many years together and raised a wonderful daughter.
She’d believed there was understanding, stability, a rock-solid foundation.
He knew everything about her. And she, it turned out, knew absolutely nothing about him.
She’d never even suspected that for all these years he’d been living a double life, hiding another family, and possibly preparing for divorce not out of desperation, but to leave her with nothing.
How low that was.
Nina pulled into the hotel’s underground parking garage, killed the engine, and sat there in the dark for a few more minutes with her forehead resting against the steering wheel.
There wasn’t a single clear thought in her head. The pain was unbearable. She’d been betrayed with calculated, predatory cruelty.
And she… she’d done everything for him. She had given him her entire life.
And behind her back, he’d built a second family, paid for his mistress’s whims with her own money, and coldly prepared for a divorce.
She shivered with alternating waves of heat and cold. She had trusted him so completely and had been so terribly wrong.
In the room, the first thing Nina did was toss her phone onto the bed and walk over to the window. The night city shimmered with lights, cars rushed along the streets, people went on living their ordinary lives, unaware that hers had just collapsed.
She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to pull herself together.
She couldn’t afford to lose her head.
She had to understand everything to the very end before taking any steps.
Nina sat down on the bed, picked up her phone, and opened the photos from the bank.
The birth certificate. The apartment papers. She scrolled through the images one by one, and with every new frame it became harder to breathe.
This hadn’t been an accident. Not a drunken fling. This was a parallel life, meticulously maintained for years. He had a child. And she’d been so naive she hadn’t noticed a thing.
Her hands started to shake.
Nina walked over to the minibar, took out a bottle of water, and froze. Maybe she should get something stronger? She usually stayed away from alcohol. Even the smell made her nauseous. But tonight, she didn’t care.
For so many years she’d lived with the certainty that Frank was her person. No thrilling passion, perhaps, but certainly a mutual foundation.
And now she understood that all this time a cold, calculating stranger had been living beside her.
He’d planned everything long ago. She wasn’t stupid enough not to see it now.
Two years earlier, when she’d wanted to buy an apartment by the sea, he’d suggested registering it in his mother’s name.
And Nina hadn’t objected. What was so strange about that?
They’d been together for twenty years after all.
How could you not trust your husband when he’d never once given you a reason?
Then he’d started gently planting the idea that he needed the company shares. That he was uncomfortable being just a proxy at shareholder meetings. He was the CEO, after all. He wanted more.
And if the shares had become his, would he have filed for divorce right away? Would he have simply thrown her out the door?
Anger pulsed in her head. Heavy and poisonous.
Nina opened her phone and logged into their joint bank account.
Her intuition hadn’t failed her.
The balance had been shrinking month after month. Drained in small, systematic increments so as not to arouse suspicion. And she didn’t even know how much money he might’ve siphoned out of the company through shell firms.
What had he been spending their money on?
On Vivian? On their son?
How she hated that Vivian right now.
But at this moment, Nina couldn’t do anything.
She desperately wanted to share what she’d discovered with someone.
But her only confidantes were Vivian, the viper, and Nadine, the gossip.
Was she supposed to trust something like this to Nadine?
Unlikely. She might as well book another therapist’s appointment—just to have someone she could actually speak to.
Why had he done this to her?
She’d done everything for him. Frank had come into her life as no one. An ordinary guy with ambition, but without connections or real opportunities. It was her and her father who’d made him who he was. A wealthy, respected man.
She’d supported him while he built his career, trusted him, stayed out of company affairs because she’d always believed he understood business better than she ever could.
Where would he be without her?
And then another thought struck her.
The ground dropped out from under her.
Nina closed her eyes, trying to drive it away. No. She didn’t want to think about what she’d sacrificed for Frank. It hurt too much.
Breathing became difficult. She grabbed her phone and made a decision. She needed proof. She had to see everything with her own eyes. Because her mind still refused to believe that Vivian—of all people—and her caring husband could betray her like this.
Her hand was shaking as she typed into their group chat:
“Girls, I’m leaving town for a week. Don’t wait for me at yoga.”
Vivian had to know that Nina wasn’t in the city. Most likely, Frank would go straight to her. He’d spend time with her, convinced that Nina knew nothing.
Nina herself didn’t even understand why she needed this. Maybe she wanted to make sure it was real. That he truly was capable of this.
Or maybe she just wanted the pain of betrayal to burn everything inside her to the ground once and for all.
She closed her eyes, trying to calm down, but it didn’t help.
If she could, she would have stormed home right now.
Thrown a copy of Ethan’s birth certificate in his face, accused him of cheating, filed for divorce on the spot.
But she couldn’t act on impulse. She had no idea what state their affairs were in right now.
Maybe he’d already moved half the assets.
She needed patience. And she needed to wait for the lawyers’ answers.
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