Chapter 3

By the time I got home, my bank card was dead.

There was one line waiting on my phone, from Delilah.

【Household account suspended until you've calmed down.】

I pulled open the closet and started packing clothes into a suitcase.

I hadn't even finished folding the third shirt when Delilah pushed the door open.

"Where do you think you're going now?"

"Back to my mother's."

"Over one birthday dinner?"

She pressed her hand down on the lid of the suitcase.

"Jacob, your mother pulled that money out herself. That was her choice. Alden's screening was booked in advance. There's no way I was going to let him miss a specialist slot just to stand around blowing out candles with you people."

"So you took my mother's cake?"

"It's one cake. I'll buy her ten tomorrow."

I reached up and knocked her hand off.

"It wasn't the cake she was waiting for."

Delilah stared at me, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a fresh form.

"That eighty-four thousand of your mother's was transferred into your name. Under the in-marriage income management rules, half of it goes into the household account."

I thought I'd misheard.

"That was left to me by my father."

"Transferred to you, it becomes your personal assets."

She set the form down on the suitcase.

"Forty-two thousand into the household account. The other forty-two can go toward your loan. After that, you still owe three thousand two hundred."

I grabbed the form and tore it in half.

Delilah's face finally darkened.

She clamped a hand around my wrist and yanked me back half a step.

"Who said you could tear that up?"

"It's my money."

"Two years of marriage. The place you live in, the food you eat, the water and power you use, none of that costs money? I'm just trying to keep the accounts straight. I'm not stealing from you."

"The down payment on this place came from selling the apartment I owned before we married."

Her expression didn't change.

"That one-point-two million was your contribution to this family. It doesn't mean you get to ignore the rules."

The doorbell rang.

My mother was standing outside with the thermal container.

The moment she stepped in and saw Delilah and me squared off, the color drained from her face.

"Let go of him."

Delilah released my wrist.

"Mom, we're just discussing something."

My mother came over and put herself between me and Delilah.

"Discussing something means grabbing him? You can't just talk it out?"

"I wasn't trying to hurt him."

Delilah picked up the form I'd torn.

"You've come at the right time. Jacob won't handle this by the household rules, so please take that eighty-four thousand back."

"As for the forty-three thousand he owes me, that still stands, with the interest, per the IOU."

My mother was shaking with anger.

"He used his wife's card for surgery, and that counts as a debt? You're not managing money. You're backing him into a corner!"

She reached out to snatch the form from Delilah's hand.

Delilah twisted aside and caught her by the wrist instead.

The thermal container in my mother's other hand slipped and hit the floor, soup spilling everywhere.

I shoved Delilah off.

"Don't touch my mother."

Delilah stumbled back half a step, her back hitting the desk.

A drawer jolted open, and a home-purchase agreement slid out.

I bent down and picked it up.

The buyer named on it was Alden Fox.

Six hundred thousand down, and the paying account was one under Delilah's name.

I held the agreement up in front of her.

"Is this a household rule too?"

She was quiet for two seconds.

"He didn't qualify to buy on his own. I lent it to him for the time being, to tide him over."

"Six hundred thousand needs no application, but the twelve thousand for my surgery counts as an improper expense?"

"He wrote an IOU."

"So did I."

I stared at her.

"But mine came with interest. Why didn't his?"

My mother read the agreement, and her face went ashen.

"Six hundred thousand to some other man with no accounting, but my son's twelve thousand for surgery has to carry interest?"

Delilah reached for the agreement.

I stepped back and closed my fist around it, tight.