My father-in-law had hinted at this before, but today he finally said it out loud. He was shamelessly gunning for my parents' retirement home and their pension.
There really was no one quite like him. The audacity was breathtaking.
If I agreed to this, how could I ever face my parents again? Would I even deserve to be called their daughter?
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms, and brushed his grasping hand away.
"It's not written in stone that no one else will want me," I said, my voice steady despite the trembling in my chest.
I threw out that single sentence, turned, and walked away without looking back.
Behind me, the curses of my in-laws erupted like a breached dam.
"You ungrateful wretch! Selfish to the bone!" my mother-in-law shrieked. "We just asked for a pension and a house! Is that so hard? No wonder my son divorced you!"
"My son being with you was like a fresh rose stuck in manure!" my father-in-law bellowed.
"Exactly! Good riddance!"
"Just you wait! My son is going to marry up. He'll climb higher and higher while you rot in the dirt!"
The rest of the Farley relatives joined in, hurling vicious insults at my retreating back. They called me trash. Said I didn't know when to be satisfied. Mocked me for having neither beauty nor fortune to my name.
Laughable. Over the past few years, I had helped every single one of them. Lent them money I knew I'd never see again.
I had treated my in-laws like my own flesh and blood. Bought them the best food, the finest wines, new clothes for every holiday. Never missed a single occasion.
When they were hospitalized after a car accident, Leon was away on business. Didn't have time for them. It was my parents and I who sat by their bedsides, emptying bedpans and feeding them for a month.
I had naively thought that five years of diligence and genuine care would eventually earn their respect.
I was wrong.
It wasn't just Leon who looked down on me. The entire Farley family believed, deep in their rotten hearts, that I had married up. They thought I should be grateful just to breathe the same air as their son.
No matter how much I sacrificed, it would never be enough.
We sat in the car, heading toward the Civil Affairs Bureau to finalize the divorce. The silence was thick until Leon broke it.
He turned, a mocking glint in his eyes. "What did you mean back there? That line about how it's not necessarily true that no one wants you?"
He sneered. "Do you actually think you can land a wealthy, high-class man? Or are you delusional enough to think you can find someone better than me?"
Before I could answer, Leon threw his head back and laughed—a harsh, cruel sound.
"Evelyn, stop dreaming. Aside from providing a little emotional support, what do you actually bring to the table?"
His gaze turned cold. "I'm not afraid to tell you the truth now. All that 'goodness' you gave me? I got sick of it a long time ago. It was suffocating."
I sat frozen. Even in the final moments, he felt the need to twist the knife.
I remembered the day we got married. Leon had held my hands, his eyes shining with what I thought was love. In the whole world, only you are genuinely good to me, he'd said. Everyone else has ulterior motives. I love you, and I'll never get tired of you.
And now?
His mistress hadn't even officially appeared yet, and he was already rewriting our history.
We got the certificate. It was done.
When we returned to the house to pack his things, the first thing Leon did was rip our wedding photos off the wall. He smashed the frames, glass shattering across the floor, then tossed the prints into a metal bin to burn them.
"Evelyn."
His voice was sharp, commanding.
"Delete everything about me. I don't want to leave any bad traces behind."
He spoke to me like I was an employee he was firing.
I stood there in a daze. The man in front of me was a stranger.
"Okay."
I nodded, pulled out my phone, and deleted Leon from WeChat and my contact list. Then I went to the gallery. Selected every photo of us—five years of memories—and hit delete.
Watching the storage bar clear, I froze for a second. Then a strange sensation washed over me. As if a heavy stone had been lifted from my chest. I let out a long, shaky sigh of relief.
Leon snatched my phone and scrolled through it, checking to make sure I hadn't hidden anything. Only when he was satisfied did he grab the handle of his suitcase and walk out.
But at the door, he stopped.
"Evelyn."
He called my name softly this time.
I looked up, meeting his gaze. Despite my resolve, a sudden wave of grievance stung my nose, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.
"People have to look out for themselves," he said, his tone dripping with condescending pity. "Don't blame me. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself. You just weren't exciting enough. Weren't outstanding enough to keep me."
With that, Leon turned and walked away. He didn't look back.
I listened to his retreating footsteps. Light. Bouncy.
He was practically vibrating with excitement.
As he walked down the hall, I heard him dialing a number, eager to summon his connection to the Beijing elite—his ticket to the life he thought he deserved.
Downstairs, the staging was impeccable.
Derek Mills had been waiting a while, leaning against a luxury car worth millions. Beside him stood a woman with voluminous curls and lips painted a striking crimson.
She dripped with wealth—a diamond necklace at her collarbone, a Patek Philippe glinting on her wrist. She looked like extraordinary money.
"Leon!"
Derek waved enthusiastically as Leon emerged. "Congratulations on the divorce! You've finally escaped that sea of misery!"
He gestured grandly to the woman. "Let me introduce you. This is my wife's best friend, Penelope Galloway."
Derek leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "She says she has a thing for men like you."
Leon's chest puffed out. A smug grin spread across his face, his eyes lighting up with undisguised greed.
Penelope's lips curled into a practiced smile. She reached out and opened the rear car door. "My prince," she purred. "Please, get in."
"You really are something else," Leon laughed, his ego stroked to perfection. He slid into the backseat, looking happier than he had in years.
I watched the entire scene from the upstairs window.
As the luxury car pulled away, a nagging sense of familiarity tugged at me. I'd seen Penelope Galloway somewhere before. Trusting my gut, I sent the photo I'd snapped to Marcus Cole, my old classmate who now worked with Interpol.
Is this the fugitive you've been tracking?
