Chapter 1

On our third wedding anniversary, I cleared out my Amazon cart, booked her favorite French restaurant, and planned to give her a surprise.

But the surprise came from her, not me.

"Hello, Mr. Lucas, this is Sarah from the Ferrari dealership. Congratulations! Your SF90 Stradale has arrived. When would you be available to handle the final payment and handover?"

The voice on the phone was sweet and polite.

I froze in front of my computer, convinced it was a scam call.

"You've got the wrong number. I didn't buy a Ferrari."

"No mistake, sir. The order was placed under your company's name, and the deposit of a hundred and fifty thousand was transferred from your company's account. The contact person listed for the purchase was a Ms. Vanessa Lynn, but the final pickup requires the company's legal representative — that's you — to sign for it."

Vanessa Lynn. My wife.

My mind went completely blank.

We did have a small company, "Lynn & Lucas Tech," with a registered capital of two hundred thousand.

That was all the money I'd saved from projects before we got married.

To make her feel secure, and because I trusted her, I made myself the legal representative but handed her all the daily operations and finances.

I told her, "Honey, you don't need to slave away at some job. I'll take care of you. This company is yours to play with. If it makes money, it's yours. If it loses money, it's on me."

For three years, I earned five thousand a month. Besides daily expenses, I poured the rest into the company account, calling it "building for our future."

She always said the company was making small investments, breaking even, with a few hundred thousand in liquid assets.

I never doubted her.

Until today.

A hundred and fifty thousand as a down payment, for a Ferrari?

My heart began to race, and a sickening feeling of dread crawled up my throat.

I fought to keep my voice steady. "Alright, I understand. Send the car's specs and the recipient information to my phone."

"Of course, Mr. Lucas."

Less than a minute after I hung up, a message came in.

An SF90 Stradale, every option maxed out, with a final price tag north of six hundred thousand.

And in the designated recipient column, a name I'd never heard before — Brandon Harris.

I stared at the name, feeling the blood in my veins turn to ice in a single, frozen moment.

At seven in the evening, Vanessa came home.

She was wearing a Chanel dress I'd bought her, her makeup flawless.

"Honey, what's the special occasion? You even booked a restaurant?" she asked with a smile, moving to take my arm.

I pulled away.

The smile on her face stiffened for a second.

I turned my phone screen to show her the Ferrari specs.

"What's this?" I asked.

Vanessa's expression shifted, but it took only a second before she regained her composure.

"Oh, that," she said dismissively, brushing her hair back. "A client. To close a major deal, I had to send a little something to grease the wheels. Business stuff. You wouldn't understand."

"A little something?" My voice started to shake. "A six-hundred-thousand-dollar Ferrari is 'a little something'?"

"The deal's profits are in the millions. This is nothing." She frowned impatiently. "Lucas, you're just a code monkey. What do you know about business? Stop with the paranoid accusations. You're ruining my mood."

"Who is Brandon Harris?" I stared at her, locking onto her eyes.

"I told you, a client!" Her voice suddenly spiked. "What's gotten into you today? Are you trying to start a fight?"

She stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door. The sound crashed against my heart.

I sat in the cold living room, looking at the reservation confirmation for the now-cold dinner on the table.

Maybe I didn't understand business.

But I understood that no deal in the world required giving a client a Ferrari.

More importantly, when a woman starts covering up the truth with lies and contempt, her heart... it's no longer with you.

Was this the Vanessa I'd known and loved for eight years?

That night, we slept in separate rooms.

Lying in the guest room bed, I didn't sleep a wink.

I'm a programmer. To most people, just a simple, honest code monkey.

My world is simple. Code doesn't lie. One equals one, zero equals zero.

But the human heart... it's more complex than the most intricate algorithm.

The next day, I took leave from work.

Vanessa was out the door early, not even saying a word to me.

I was alone at home.

I turned on our shared iMac, the one we bought when we got married, with all files synced through iCloud.

She said it was for convenience, so we could handle company stuff from anywhere.

I used to be proud of her "foresight."

Now, it just felt ironic.

I clicked on the company's finance software, but a password prompt stopped me.