Chapter 3

"They're accusing me of plagiarism," I said to Chloe that night, my voice dangerously calm. "They're accusing me of stealing my own game. It's ridiculous." I was looking for a reaction, a flicker of outrage on my behalf, anything to prove my fears wrong.

She just continued to file her nails, not meeting my eyes. "Well, their game is coming out first. In business, that's what matters. Perception is reality."

Her indifference was more painful than an open accusation. "Chloe, I told you everything about this game. The design documents, the character arcs, the core loop. Everything."

She finally looked up, her expression cold and hard. "I supported you, Ethan. I paid the bills while you played with your little computer games. I thought you were building a real company. I guess I overestimated you."

"Supported me?" The words caught in my throat. "You call this support? You handed my work over to your lover so he could ruin me."

"Don't be dramatic," she scoffed. "It's just business. And our business, this partnership, is over." She stood up, her movements sharp and final. "I put my faith in you for years. It was a bad investment."

The idea that she saw our entire relationship, our marriage, as a transaction hit me with a physical force. It wasn't about love or partnership. It was about return on investment. And I hadn't paid out. The pain was sharp and deep, a wound that felt fatal.

The next day, her parents were in town. She asked me to pick them up from the airport, a final, cruel twist of the knife. I drove them back to our apartment, listening to them talk in the backseat in their heavy regional dialect, assuming I couldn't understand.

"Chloe is finally getting rid of this dead weight," her mother said, her voice dripping with disdain. "He was never good enough for her. A dreamer with no money. Liam is a real man. Powerful, rich. He can give our Chloe the life she deserves."

Her father grunted in agreement. "She should have done this years ago."

I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles bone-white. Chloe, sitting in the passenger seat, said nothing. Her silence was a ringing endorsement of their words. She was letting them tear me apart, right in front of me.

The city was blanketed in a sudden, unseasonable snowstorm. The wind howled, and the world outside the car was a blur of white. It felt like the end of the world.

"Do you regret any of it?" I asked her, my voice barely a whisper. "Any of the last ten years?"

She stared out the window at the swirling snow. "Regret is a useless emotion, Ethan."

Her non-answer was an answer. I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled the car over to the side of the road, the tires crunching on the icy shoulder.

"Get out," I said to her.

She looked at me, surprised for the first time. "What?"

"I said get out. I'm not your chauffeur anymore."

I watched her get out of the car, her expensive coat clutched around her as the snow began to fall on her perfect hair. I drove away, leaving her and her parents on the side of the road. That night, fueled by a mixture of grief and rage, I did something I should have done weeks ago. I found the box for those cufflinks she'd claimed were a team gift. Inside the lid, almost too small to see, was a custom engraving. A date and a series of numbers. I typed the numbers into a search engine. They were coordinates. Coordinates to a secluded beach resort in the Maldives. The date was from six months ago, the week she told me she was at a "business conference" in another state. My a-ha moment. It was confirmation of a long-running affair. The foundation of my life crumbled into dust.