Chapter 4

The next afternoon, Serena finally drifted home from the hot spring resort, languid and unhurried.

She had an expensive Hermès scarf tied around her neck — but it wasn't quite long enough to hide the red marks along the edges.

She tossed her platinum bag — worth a small fortune — onto the couch without a second thought, kicked off her heels, and stared at me with open irritation.

"Dominic, are you dead? Can't you see I just walked in? You couldn't even pour me a glass of water?"

I sat in the shadow of the room. I didn't get up. I didn't go to her like I always had before.

I raised my head and looked at her. Quietly. Still.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Serena was unsettled by my stare. She stormed over, furious and embarrassed, pointing her finger right in my face. "I was playing poker with my bestie at the resort all night. I'm exhausted. Go run my bath. Now."

"Poker?" I rose slowly to my feet, my voice completely flat. "In the hot spring pool with Noah?"

Serena's expression froze. Her pupils contracted for just a split second before she forced herself to look composed and cranked up the volume. "What the hell are you talking about? Oh, so you've got nerve now? You followed me? Dominic, are you out of your mind?!"

Just then, the front door swung open and Noah strolled in like he owned the place.

He didn't even knock.

He noticed we seemed to be arguing and let out a contemptuous snort. He walked over and threw his arm around Serena's shoulder, staring me down with a smirk.

"What's going on, Serena? This loser giving you trouble again?"

Serena melted into his side like she'd found her anchor. She pouted up at him. "He actually had the nerve to suspect us. And the way he was looking at me—"

Noah's eyes went cold. He stepped forward and reached out to shove my shoulder.

"Dominic, who the hell do you think you are? Serena can do whatever she wants with whoever she wants. You're just some guy living off her money. What gives you the right to say a damn word? Keep it up and I will end you."

He seemed to have forgotten how he'd knelt at my feet five years ago, begging.

He also seemed to have forgotten who had actually paid for everything.

I shifted slightly to the side, letting his hand miss me, and looked at the two of them like I was staring at a pair of corpses.

"Is that so?" I let out a cold laugh and pulled a thick envelope from the coffee table drawer.

I slammed it down on the glass tabletop with a sharp crack.

The sound echoed through the empty living room. Serena flinched.

"What is wrong with you?!" she shrieked.

I ignored her. I unwound the clasp, letting everything spill out.

The first document was a divorce agreement, already signed with my name.

The second was a fifty-page evidence file. It contained every hotel check-in record from the past three years, explicit screenshots of their messages, bank statements showing Serena quietly siphoning off my paychecks, and — high-resolution photos from the hot spring pool last night.

The third was the agreement Noah had signed back then — the "seduction contract." The transaction amount was written out in plain black and white, right next to his bright red thumbprint.

"Take a look." I stood there with both hands in my pockets, my tone stripped of any emotion. "When you're done, sign the papers and get out of my house."

What I didn't say was that this was only the second envelope.

Another one had been delivered to her father's office five minutes ago.