As if startled by my silence, a mist formed in Aurel’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, Marina,” she said softly. “I didn’t know that just registering my fingerprint would upset you. I’ll ask Barly to delete it when I leave later.”
Then she turned to Barly with a gentle smile.
“Barly, I’ll wait outside tomorrow until you finish work and then we can eat together, okay? If I’m a little late getting back to the hospital, the patients might complain... but I don’t mind.”
I’ve always suspected that Aurel and I simply weren’t compatible. Every time we exchanged a few words, she ended up in tears.
And somehow, everyone always assumed I was the one bullying her.
This time was no different.
“No need to delete it,” Barly said sharply, shooting me an annoyed glance before getting up to wipe Aurel’s tears.
“I’m the one who registered her fingerprint. If you have a problem, take it up with me. Don’t vent it on an innocent person.”
He didn’t see it—but the “innocent person” he was defending had just tilted her head and shot me a smug, triumphant smile.
I licked my lips, then suddenly let out a laugh.
Across the office, I looked directly at Barly.
“You said you’ve always seen her as a younger sister. That’s why you’ve been so good to her all these years, right?”
He hesitated for a second before giving a small nod.
I nodded slowly back and finally asked the question that had been lodged in my chest for the past three years.
“After we got married, shouldn’t I at least be her half-sister-in-law? Has she ever called me that—not even once?”
“Have you ever asked her to change the way she addresses me?”
“Even on our wedding day, when the elders asked her to toast me, she got so drunk she couldn’t stand. You stayed with her the entire night… and left me alone on our wedding night.”
“I had no idea that the treatment for a half-sister ranks higher than that of a newlywed wife. If I’d known, maybe I would’ve gone out and found myself a half-brother, just to experience that kind of special care…”
“Marina Jones!”
Before I could finish, Barly snapped, his face darkening.
He turned back to comfort Aurel, who was now sobbing uncontrollably and shouting that she wanted to jump from the building to prove her innocence.
“If you can’t speak properly, then get out. Don’t come here just to be sarcastic.”
“A person with a filthy heart sees filth in everything.”
“Is that your answer to me?” I asked, frowning.
Sure, my words were laced with bitterness—but weren’t they the truth?
I slammed the office door behind me and stormed out.
The news reached Mrs. Hudson not long after. She called me specifically to deliver a lecture.
“Barly manages a massive company—he’s busy from morning to night, barely has time to eat. As his wife, instead of easing his burdens, you’re creating more for him. Can’t you even let him relax a little during his free time?”
“What’s wrong with me finding someone to keep him company and help him unwind?”
“You can't even fulfill the basic duties of a wife. What right do you have to object?”
My hands clenched at my sides and my heart turned even colder.
Back then, to help Aurel play the perfect victim, Barly had trampled all over my dignity. He dragged seven or eight men—strangers to me—before the elders and accused me of secretly having an abortion.
“Just sacrifice yourself this once,” he had said. “I’ll explain everything to the family later.”
I waited more than a month for that explanation.
What I got instead was a new wave of online smear campaigns.
I hung up the phone halfheartedly and collapsed onto the sofa, utterly drained.
My thoughts wandered to the past.
Barly and I had built everything from scratch. When I first met him, he was just a small business owner, running a modest company.
I joined his team, accompanied him to meetings, helped him win over clients. We often entertained late into the night, dealing with demanding CEOs and high-maintenance executives.
When the company hit a bottleneck and frustration weighed him down, he would invite me to walk with him by the river, just to talk it out.
