I didn’t go home.

I went straight to the bank.

Two years earlier, Nathan had insisted that I stop managing our finances.

“Taking care of our daughter is enough,” he had said. “Leave the money to me.”

But he had forgotten something.

When we bought our apartment, the family account had been opened in both our names.

I asked for the transaction history.

The employee printed it.

Page after page landed in front of me.

Eight thousand yuan every month for Laura’s apartment.

Restaurants.

Designer stores.

Hotel charges.

And then I saw a transfer that made my hands stop.

320,000 yuan.

Recipient: Laura Lin.

I stared at it.

“What was this payment for?”

The employee checked.

“It was marked as a property deposit.”

So Nathan hadn’t simply rented her an apartment.

He was helping her buy one.

My phone began ringing.

Nathan.

I ignored it.

Then a message appeared.

Emma, don’t do anything stupid. Come home. We can fix this.

I almost laughed.

Another notification arrived.

This one wasn’t from Nathan.

It was from an unknown number.

Mrs. Zhou, I was in the video meeting today. You need to see something.

A file followed.

Not the embarrassing recording.

Something worse.

It was a screenshot from the company’s internal accounting system.

Laura’s necklace had been purchased using company funds.

So had several hotel stays.

And beside the approvals was Nathan’s electronic signature.

My phone rang again.

This time I answered.

“What?”

Nathan sounded breathless.

“Where are you?”

“At the bank.”

Silence.

Then:

“Emma, listen to me carefully. Don’t touch our accounts.”

Our accounts.

Interesting.

“Why?”

“Because some of that money belongs to the company.”

I looked at the 320,000-yuan transfer.

“How much?”

He stopped speaking.

That was my answer.

When I finally returned home, Nathan was waiting in the living room.

Laura wasn’t there.

Our daughter was staying with my mother, thankfully.

Nathan approached me.

“I made mistakes.”

“Mistakes?”

“I’ll end things with Laura.”

I placed the statements on the table.

His face changed immediately.

“You checked the account?”

“Yes.”

He grabbed the pages.

Then he reached the property deposit.

All the color disappeared from his face.

“Emma…”

“Two years ago, you asked me to leave my job because our daughter needed me.”

I looked at him.

“You gave me five thousand yuan a month and made me feel guilty for buying fruit.”

He lowered his head.

“And meanwhile, you were building another life.”

“I’ll return everything.”

“It’s too late.”

I placed one more document beside him.

His eyes widened.

“What is that?”

“My employment contract.”

He stared at me.

Three months earlier, without telling Nathan, I had accepted an offer from my former company.

Remote position.

Senior financial analyst.

I had planned to surprise him once our daughter started school.

Now the surprise belonged entirely to me.

“I start Monday.”

Nathan looked genuinely frightened.

“You’re going back to work?”

“Yes.”

“And our daughter?”

“I’ll take care of her.”

“You can’t just decide that.”

I smiled.

“You did.”

His phone suddenly started vibrating.

Again.

Again.

Again.

He checked the screen.

His expression collapsed.

“What happened?”

He didn’t answer.

So I looked.

Company group chats were exploding.

Someone had uploaded the video.

But underneath it was another post.

The accounting screenshots.

The necklace.

The apartment payments.

The hotels.

Employees had started asking whether company money had been used to finance Nathan’s affair.

Then came a message from the chairman.

Nathan Zhou and Laura Lin are suspended pending an internal investigation. Report to headquarters tomorrow at 8:00 a.m.

Nathan sank onto the sofa.

I picked up my suitcase.

“Emma.”

I kept walking.

Then he said something that stopped me.

“The 320,000 wasn’t for Laura’s apartment.”

I turned.

He looked terrified.

“What was it for?”

Nathan opened his mouth.

Before he could answer, the doorbell rang.

A woman stood outside.

I recognized her immediately.

Nathan’s mother.

She looked at the suitcase in my hand, then at her son.

Finally, she turned to me.

“Emma, before you leave, there’s something you need to know about that money.”

She placed a property document in my hands.

I read the registered owner’s name.

And suddenly I understood why Nathan had been terrified of me checking the account.

The apartment wasn’t registered to Laura.

It was registered to our five-year-old daughter.