When the Gulfstream landed in Hong Kong, I had already stopped wondering whether Daniel was cheating on me.

The question had changed.

What was he trying so desperately to stop me from discovering?

A Tengyao car was waiting beside the runway. The driver opened the door while I climbed in with my small suitcase.

“Ms. Lucia, Mr. Morales asked me to take you directly to the hotel. Your meeting begins at ten.”

I checked the time.

I had a little over an hour.

“Perfect.”

My phone vibrated the moment it regained signal.

Twenty-three missed calls.

Every single one from Daniel.

There were messages too.

“Answer me.”

“Don’t drag Gabriel into our problems.”

“You’re overreacting about the key.”

And finally:

“Lucia, don’t go looking for 2108.”

I froze.

I read it three times.

Daniel had just made the mistake he had spent all night avoiding.

He had admitted he knew exactly what that number meant.

I took a screenshot.

Then I locked my phone.

The meeting was held on the forty-seventh floor of a tower overlooking Victoria Harbour. Twelve people were waiting around a walnut conference table, including the senior executives of the client we had spent nearly nine months trying to secure.

That negotiation was the reason I had been promoted.

Daniel knew that.

He also knew that if I failed to show up, the project would probably be handed to another director.

Now I understood that my missing ID had never been an accident.

Someone had wanted me to miss this trip.

And that someone had spent the entire night lying on my couch.

For almost two hours, I forgot about my marriage.

I presented the numbers, defended our proposal, and answered every difficult question thrown at me.

When I finished, the client’s chief financial officer closed his folder.

“Ms. Lucia, we would like to continue with Tengyao.”

For the first time all morning, I felt as though I could breathe.

But before I could respond, Marcus, my local colleague, received a message and frowned.

“There’s something strange.”

“What happened?”

He turned his laptop toward me.

An email had been sent from Daniel’s corporate account the night before.

The subject line read:

“Urgent Change of Representative.”

I read the first few sentences.

Daniel had informed the client that I was “emotionally unwell” and therefore unable to represent the company professionally.

He recommended postponing the meeting until another executive could travel.

My blood ran cold.

“Did he have the authority to send this?”

Marcus shook his head.

“No.”

I looked at the timestamp.

11:46 p.m.

Exactly when I had been tearing our apartment apart searching for my identification.

Daniel had been sitting on the couch playing with his phone.

Except he hadn’t been playing.

He had been sabotaging my career while watching me panic three meters away.

I pulled out my phone.

Unblocked Daniel.

Called him.

He answered instantly.

“Lucia.”

The arrogance was gone.

Now he sounded afraid.

“Did you send an email to the client saying I was emotionally incapable of handling the meeting?”

Silence.

“You don’t understand how this works.”

“I asked whether you sent it.”

“Lucia, come home.”

I laughed.

“Interesting. Last night you wanted me to miss the trip. Now you want me back.”

“There are things you don’t understand.”

“Then explain 2108.”

His breathing changed.

“Don’t go there.”

“Where is it?”

“I’m telling you—”

“Thank you, Daniel.”

I hung up.

Marcus watched me across the table.

“Do you want me to report this to Gabriel?”

“Not yet.”

Because some part of me needed to know how far this went.

After the meeting, I returned to the hotel.

At reception, an employee handed me an envelope.

“This was left for you this morning.”

There was no sender.

I opened it inside the elevator.

One photograph was inside.

Daniel walking out of a residential tower.

Date: two weeks earlier.

Time: 10:17 p.m.

At the bottom, someone had written:

JADE TOWER. 21ST FLOOR. 2108.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I searched the address.

Jade Tower was fifteen minutes away.

Then I found something even worse.

The registered owner of Apartment 2108 wasn’t Daniel.

It was a woman named Sophie Lin.

I recognized the name immediately.

Sophie worked at Tengyao.

International Strategy Department.

And for the past six months, she had been competing with me for the promotion I had ultimately received.

The same promotion that had sent me to Hong Kong.

I called Gabriel.

“Do you know Sophie Lin?”

There was a pause.

“Of course.”

“What do you know about her?”

“Why?”

“Gabriel.”

His voice hardened.

“Lucia, tell me where you are.”

“At my hotel.”

“Don’t go anywhere.”

I slowly stood.

“Why?”

“Because Sophie was suspended this morning.”

A chill moved down my spine.

“Why?”

“We found confidential files transferred through her account.”

I stared again at the photograph of Daniel.

“What files?”

“Information about our Hong Kong proposal.”

Everything went silent.

The room.

The city beyond the windows.

Even my own breathing.

“Gabriel… are you saying someone leaked our offer?”

“Yes.”

“And Sophie had access?”

“She shouldn’t have.”

Then I remembered something.

Daniel did.

Not officially.

But for months, he had used my laptop at home.

He knew my old passwords.

He knew when I worked late.

He knew where I stored drafts.

And the night before, he had hidden my ID to stop me from getting to Hong Kong.

I looked at the envelope again.

“Gabriel, who sent me this photograph?”

“What photograph?”

I didn’t answer.

Someone knocked on my door.

Three times.

Slow.

Firm.

“Lucia,” Gabriel said through the phone. “Is someone there?”

I approached without making a sound.

Then I looked through the peephole.

A woman stood in the hallway.

Dark hair.

Beige coat.

A small cut across her lip.

Sophie Lin.

I opened the door just enough to speak, leaving the security chain in place.

She raised both hands.

“Please don’t call security.”

“What are you doing here?”

Her eyes were red.

“Daniel knows I’m in Hong Kong.”

My stomach tightened.

“Are you the woman from Apartment 2108?”

Sophie went pale.

Then slowly shook her head.

“That apartment isn’t really mine.”

“It’s registered in your name.”

“I know.”

She glanced toward both ends of the hallway before stepping closer.

“Lucia, your husband has been using my identity for months to hide internal operations inside Tengyao.”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

Gabriel was still listening.

“What operations?”

Sophie swallowed.

“The Hong Kong contract is only part of it.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small USB drive.

“Everything is here.”

She extended her hand.

But before I could take it, the elevator at the end of the hallway chimed.

The doors opened.

Sophie went completely rigid.

All the color drained from her face.

“No…”

I turned toward the elevator.

A man stepped out, dragging a black suitcase behind him.

Wrinkled shirt.

Messy hair.

The same furious expression I had seen so many times inside our home.

Daniel.

He looked at me.

Then at the USB drive in Sophie’s hand.

And finally, he smiled.

But this wasn’t the smug little smile I knew.

This was something colder.

“Lucia,” he said as he began walking toward us. “I told you not to look for 2108.”

Then Sophie grabbed my arm and whispered something that made it feel as though the floor had disappeared beneath my feet.

“Don’t give him that drive. Your husband didn’t come here because of me. He came because he just discovered that you’re the only person who can open the file inside it.”