I did not approve Lucía’s investment.

I didn’t reject it either.

I typed only one sentence to my paralegal.

“Send me everything connected to the application.”

Five minutes later, a folder arrived.

I opened it.

The applicant was Vidal Urban Design, Lucía’s architecture studio.

The proposed investment was eighty million yuan.

But the source of funds was not Lucía.

It came from Gu Horizon Capital.

Daniel’s company.

I stared at those words for a long time.

So even after our divorce, there were still things I didn’t know.

My phone rang.

Daniel.

I almost ignored it.

Then I answered.

“What?”

“Did Lucía call you?”

His question made me laugh.

“You two really are synchronized.”

“Clara, listen to me.”

“I’ve listened enough.”

“No. You haven’t.”

His voice sounded exhausted.

“I never slept with Lucía. I never kissed her. I never had an affair with her.”

I closed the investment documents.

“You lied to me for six months.”

“I know.”

“You deleted messages.”

“Yes.”

“You met her secretly.”

“Yes.”

“You told her things you couldn’t tell your wife.”

Silence.

That silence was enough.

I said quietly, “Then we’re arguing about vocabulary.”

“Clara—”

“You think betrayal begins in a hotel room. I don’t.”

He stopped breathing for a second.

I continued.

“When you were hurt, you went to her. When you were afraid, you called her. When something happened at work, she knew before I did.”

My voice remained surprisingly calm.

“You gave another woman the part of you that should at least have been honest with me.”

Daniel suddenly said:

“I was talking to her about you.”

I froze.

“What?”

“Every meeting. Every call. Every message that I hid from you.”

He inhaled shakily.

“It was about you.”

I almost laughed.

“That might be the worst lie you’ve told me.”

“It isn’t a lie.”

“Then explain.”

But before he could answer, my doorbell rang.

I looked at the security screen.

Lucía stood outside.

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“She’s here.”

Daniel’s voice changed instantly.

“Don’t let her leave.”

I frowned.

“What?”

“Clara, please. Make her tell you the truth.”

I hung up.

Then I opened the door.

Lucía looked terrible.

No makeup.

Red eyes.

Her hair tied carelessly behind her head.

Nothing like the composed woman I had watched sitting beside my husband in that café.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

She flinched.

I folded my arms.

“Say whatever you came to say.”

Lucía looked down.

“Daniel called me.”

“Of course he did.”

“He told me what you said outside the registry.”

I smiled.

“So now both of you are worried that I know.”

“No.”

She suddenly looked at me.

“We’re worried because you know half of it.”

I felt irritation rise.

“Then give me the other half.”

She opened her bag.

And took out a thick folder.

“I’ve been trying to find Helena Huang.”

Every thought in my head stopped.

My expression didn’t change.

“Who?”

“The founder of Starline.”

She watched me carefully.

“I’ve been looking for her for almost a year.”

I said nothing.

Lucía continued.

“Daniel asked me to.”

“Why?”

“Because of you.”

I nearly closed the door.

She put her hand against it.

“Six months ago Daniel discovered someone was following you.”

My hand stopped.

“What are you talking about?”

“He thought it was corporate surveillance.”

“I’m a programmer.”

“That’s what he thought too.”

She swallowed.

“Until someone offered him thirty million yuan for information about the software projects you worked on before your marriage.”

For the first time, I felt genuinely unsettled.

“Who?”

“We don’t know.”

“Convenient.”

Lucía’s eyes filled with anger.

“Do you think I enjoyed lying to you?”

“Yes.”

That silenced her.

Then she nodded slowly.

“You have every right to.”

She handed me the folder.

Inside were photographs.

Of me.

Leaving work.

Buying coffee.

Entering my apartment building.

Visiting my parents.

Some had been taken from across the street.

Others from frighteningly close distances.

Dates appeared beneath them.

The earliest was eight months ago.

My skin went cold.

“Where did these come from?”

“Daniel hired an investigator after he realized you were being watched.”

I looked up.

“And somehow that required secret meetings with my best friend?”

Lucía closed her eyes.

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because I recognized one of the men.”

She turned several pages.

A photograph showed a middle-aged man stepping into a black sedan.

“He approached my firm last year. He claimed to represent an investment fund.”

“What fund?”

Lucía hesitated.

“Starline Technologies.”

I almost stopped breathing.

“He wasn’t from Starline.”

“I know that now.”

She pointed at the folder.

“Daniel and I started investigating him.”

The café.

The deleted messages.

The hidden calls.

Suddenly there was another possible explanation.

But one thing still didn’t fit.

“Why not tell me?”

Lucía laughed bitterly.

“That was my question too.”

She looked toward the hallway.

“Daniel believed whoever was watching you wanted something you had. He was terrified that if you knew, you’d confront them.”

“That sounds like him deciding what I’m allowed to know.”

“Yes.”

Her answer came immediately.

“And I told him that.”

I stared at her.

“Then why help him?”

Her expression changed.

Because now we had reached the real secret.

Lucía sat down slowly.

“Because he told me something else.”

“What?”

“He said you were planning to leave him.”

I frowned.

“This was six months ago.”

“I know.”

“I hadn’t contacted a lawyer yet.”

“He knew.”

“How?”

Lucía looked at me sadly.

“He didn’t. He was afraid.”

That made no sense.

She opened another section of the folder.

Inside were printouts of property listings.

Apartments.

All in neighborhoods I liked.

Then bank documents.

A trust.

Beneficiary:

Clara Shen.

Amount:

50,000,000 yuan.

I looked at Lucía.

“What is this?”

“Daniel created it eight months ago.”

“Why?”

“He thought you were unhappy.”

My chest tightened.

Lucía continued quietly.

“He said if you eventually left him, he wanted you to have enough money that you would never need to stay because of financial security.”

I stared at the papers.

Fifty million.

Hidden from me.

Just as my billions had been hidden from him.

The irony was almost cruel.

“He still lied,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“He still shut me out.”

“Yes.”

“He still made decisions for me.”

“Yes.”

Lucía’s voice softened.

“But Clara, he wasn’t meeting me because he loved me.”

I looked at her.

“Then why were you comforting him?”

Her eyes reddened.

“Because he was falling apart.”

The image returned.

Daniel beside her in the café.

Crying.

Her hand on his shoulder.

“What was he crying about?”

Lucía hesitated.

Then answered.

“You.”

My phone vibrated.

A message from my paralegal.

I looked down.

“Ms. Huang, we’ve completed the preliminary background review of Vidal Urban Design’s investment application.”

A second message appeared.

“There is an irregularity.”

Then a third.

“The eighty million yuan attributed to Gu Horizon Capital did not originate from Daniel Gu.”

My heart began pounding.

I opened the attached transaction map.

The money had passed through four shell companies.

The final beneficial owner was hidden.

But one company name appeared twice.

I knew it.

I had seen it seven years ago.

The company that had tried to steal Starline’s first encryption patent.

My blood turned cold.

Then my phone rang again.

Unknown number.

I answered.

A man’s voice said:

“Ms. Huang.”

Not Clara.

Huang.

Nobody outside Starline’s inner circle was supposed to connect those two names.

I stood completely still.

The man chuckled.

“Congratulations on your divorce.”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“Who are you?”

“You’ve hidden Helena Huang very well for seven years.”

Lucía stared at me.

I turned away.

Then the man said something that made every hair on my body stand up.

“But your ex-husband wasn’t nearly as careful.”

I looked toward the window.

Across the street, a black sedan was parked beneath a tree.

Its engine was running.

“He has something we need,” the man continued.

“What?”

“The same thing he’s been protecting for the last eight months.”

I stopped breathing.

“Where is Daniel?”

The man laughed softly.

“You should ask yourself why he was so willing to sign those divorce papers.”

The call ended.

At that exact moment, Lucía’s phone rang.

She answered.

Her face lost all color.

“What?”

She looked at me.

“Clara…”

“What happened?”

Her lips trembled.

“Daniel never went home after the registry.”

My stomach dropped.

“Where is he?”

Lucía slowly lowered the phone.

“His car was just found abandoned beside the river.”

And on the passenger seat was the divorce certificate.

Covered in blood.