Chapter 3

The moment I kicked open the front door, the scene in our living room made my blood boil to the bursting point!

On the sofa, Ryan was sitting with his back to me, holding Chloe’s face in both of his hands. Even a fool could see how disgustingly intimate their posture was!

"You bastard!!"

The fury that had been festering during the entire flight erupted like a volcano. I roared, lunged forward, and grabbed Ryan by his collar, yanking him backward with brutal force.

Caught completely off guard, he stumbled.

Before he could regain his footing, I drove a devastating punch right into his jaw!

"Aaargh!"

Ryan let out a pathetic wail, crashing heavily to the floor, clutching his face as he curled up in agony.

"Ethan!"

Chloe stared in frozen shock. It was not until Ryan’s screams filled the room that she finally snapped out of her daze.

She turned pale with fright, threw herself to Ryan’s side, and frantically tried to pull him up.

"Ryan! Ryan, are you okay? Does it hurt?"

Ryan grimaced, clutching his cheek. "It... it hurts so bad. I think my jaw is broken..."

Chloe whipped her head up, glaring at me with blazing fury. "Ethan, how could you beat Ryan like this?! You've gone completely insane!"

Watching her protect another man so fiercely, I let out a bitter, savage laugh:

"I've gone insane? You two were all over each other on my couch! You think that's acceptable?!"

"What kind of garbage are you spewing?!"

Chloe shrieked, perfectly righteous:

"I got something in my eye, and Ryan was just blowing it out for me! We didn't do anything inappropriate!"

"I can't believe your mind is this filthy! I totally misjudged you!"

"And what about the photos and videos?!"

I bellowed at the top of my lungs: "Chloe, I tolerated your sick, twisted tests over and over again! But I never imagined you'd actually cheat on me, film it, and shove it in my face!"

"What, were you showing off to me?! Were you trying to humiliate me?!"

Hearing me bring up the pictures, Chloe’s eyes flickered with guilt, and her tone softened as she rushed to explain:

"You misunderstood! Those photos and videos were all AI-generated!"

With that, she shoved her unlocked phone into my hands. "Look for yourself!"

My hands shook as I scrolled through her screen.

Sure enough, inside an AI generation app, there were detailed text prompts describing those explicit poses, along with the raw generated images.

The evidence that had made my blood boil—the very evidence that had cost me my career-defining deal—was entirely fake!

"See?! It's all fake!"

Seeing my expression shift, Chloe assumed she had the upper hand again. Her voice instantly soared an octave, dripping with entitlement and blame:

"Ryan only did this to help me! We wanted to test whether you truly loved me enough to drop your work and rush straight home to me! He helped me come up with the plan!"

"He was just being a good friend..."

Hearing those words, my hands tightened into white-knuckled fists. A crushing sense of suffocation gripped my chest, far more agonizing than raw fury.

Another test!

For this goddamn test, she sabotaged my career, trampled my dignity into the dirt, and stooped to the foulest, most repulsive trick to break me!

And to her, all of it could be brushed off with that one single word: "test!"

Seeing my silence, Chloe seemed to think the matter was settled.

She looked down at Ryan, who was still groaning on the floor, her expression softening with pity. Then, turning back to me, she demanded with casual arrogance:

"Now that everything is cleared up and it was just a misunderstanding, hurry up and apologize to Ryan! Look at what you did to his face!"

Not a shred of remorse.

Instead, she wanted me to apologize to the spineless scumbag who had concocted this filthy scheme with her?

I laughed. A cold, broken laugh.

Before Chloe could react, I swung my arm and struck her across the face with everything I had!

"SLAP—!"

The crack echoed through the living room like a gunshot.

In all the years we had been together, I had never once laid a hand on her.

"Ahhh!!"

Chloe screamed, stumbling back several steps before nearly collapsing against the coffee table.

She clutched her burning cheek, her eyes wide with shock and horror. "You... you hit me?!"

Seeing this, Ryan forced himself up, shielding Chloe while glaring at me with false righteousness:

"Ethan, you bastard! She's your wife!"

"Wife?"

I sneered, my ice-cold gaze raking over Chloe’s swelling cheek and Ryan’s pathetic, hypocritical face.

The very last thread of affection in my heart snapped cleanly in two.

"Not anymore."