Chapter 1

The internet was flooded with doomsday rumors. My husband, Marcus, a hardcore prepper enthusiast, immediately started panic-buying emergency supplies.

At three in the morning, Marcus came back with a truckload of emergency drinking water he had bought from the next city. The moment his head hit the pillow, he fell into a deep sleep.

In the quiet room, I heard him mumble in his sleep.

"Babe, I upgraded our son's bug-out bag. Make sure you pack the emergency rations and the GPS beacon."

A chill ran down my spine.

Marcus and I had been on birth control for three years. What son?

Listening to his endless sleep-talking, I took out my phone and dialed an international number.

"Dad, your son-in-law is cheating on me. Cut off all funding to Sterling Enterprises immediately."

Because of the recent doomsday rumors online, our house was piling up with more and more survival gear. From freeze-dried food to emergency candles, Marcus had bought almost everything available on the market.

Yesterday afternoon, Marcus heard from a friend about a new brand of portable drinking water with an extremely long shelf life. To ensure we had clean water when the apocalypse hit, he drove over ten hours to load up his trunk.

When he finally got home, he took a quick shower and crashed from sheer exhaustion.

Looking at my husband sleeping soundly beside me, I couldn't help but chuckle. He was always so childish yet ridiculously over-prepared.

Suddenly, he twitched and began to mumble.

"Babe..."

I immediately whispered back, "Yeah? I'm here."

But the next words out of his mouth made my smile freeze instantly. He mentioned "our son." We had been married for three years and on strict birth control. What son?

I nudged Marcus twice, but he didn't wake up. He was still dead to the world.

Yet his sleep-talking didn't stop.

"Leo is outgrowing his clothes so fast. We need to buy him some new ones soon... I'll take you out for your favorite artisanal gelato afterward."

"I love you so much, baby. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Just wait until I dump Nora..."

My heart plummeted. A cold wave of desolation washed over me.

For three years, we were the perfect, doting couple. He was attentive and complied with my every whim. But all this time, he was planning to dump me?

Wait.

Who were the "baby" and "son" he was talking about? Could it be...

I crept out of bed and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. Using my birthday, which he used as his passcode, I unlocked it. His main apps were completely clean. But then I dug deeper into his hidden folder and found a burner Snapchat account.

The burner Snapchat had only one contact. The display name was [Vivi, Marcus's Baby].

Most of the chat history had been wiped. The most recent message was from her: [Leo was so good at preschool today. He kept asking for his daddy. I'm so excited for our wedding in three days! Just thinking about it makes me so happy.]

My breathing grew shallow, and my hands started to tremble.

Even after taking a sedative to calm down, I still couldn't believe it. Marcus was cheating on me, and he already had a son with someone else.

Wiping away the tears blurring my vision, I remembered his recent obsession with buying survival gear. I opened the Amazon tracking app on his phone. It showed: [17 packages in transit...]

I clicked on each one. The packages were being shipped to two different addresses. One was our house, and the other was—

[Apartment 1306, Oakridge Towers]

The mistress's apartment?!

I used my own phone to take photos of the evidence, then slipped his phone back exactly where it was.

After some quick thinking, I called my dad.

It was three in the morning here, which meant it was noon where my dad was traveling. He picked up almost instantly. I got straight to the point. "Dad, Marcus is cheating on me. I'm looking into it, but in the meantime, cancel all of our family's financial support for Sterling Enterprises."

"That bastard!"

My dad had been thrilled to hear from me, but now he was absolutely livid. "Don't worry, sweetheart. If Marcus really did this, I will ruin the entire Sterling family."