I tore his flamboyant handwritten divorce agreement into shreds.
Lucas stared at me, his eyes filled with a complicated, unreadable mix.
Anger, disbelief… and a flicker of panic?
He couldn’t understand where my determination to divorce came from.
“Adriana, you’ll regret this.”
He threw out the warning and pulled Lydia away.
At the ward door, he turned back.
His gaze was the same one people use on something filthy.
“Until you learn how to be a decent human being and sincerely apologize to Secretary Young, don’t expect a single cent from me.”
The door slammed, the impact making the walls tremble.
At that moment, my phone lit up—dozens of notifications about frozen bank accounts appeared all at once.
I looked at the cold messages and let out a bitter smile.
I once foolishly believed I had good taste in men… that I could have a love as steadfast as my parents’.
Reality gave me the harshest slap.
Touching the scabbed cut on my wrist, I walked through the rain and returned to the villa I once called “home.”
The fingerprint lock beeped with an error.
The password lock refused me, too.
Finally, Lydia opened the door wearing my silk pajamas. The huge diamond ring on her finger pierced my eyes.
She leaned against the doorframe, smirking:
“Oh? What are you doing here? Regretting your actions?”
“But you misunderstood something. Playing hard to get won’t work on Lucas. He already said this is my home now—so you should leave.”
She tugged at her pajama collar, revealing more suggestive marks.
I pushed her aside and walked in.
“I threw all your trash out long ago!”
In just half a month, the house had changed completely.
The wedding photos were gone, replaced with her glossy portraits.
My porcelain collection vanished, replaced by her luxury items.
“Looking for your junk?”
She followed me, her tone sugar-coated and cruel. “Probably in that pile waiting to be sold in the storage room.”
In the storage room, I found my mother’s box of hand-drawn sketches.
When I opened it, my heart cracked. The drawings were splattered with ink, parts torn apart.
They were my mother’s life’s work.
Lydia picked up a stack of intact sketches and, with disdain, began tearing them:
“Your mother’s dead. Why keep these?”
“Why pile trash in my house? It’s unlucky!”
My vision went white with rage.
I lunged to stop her, but she dodged.
“Stop!”
Lucas’s voice sounded from the doorway.
He rushed over, shoved me aside, and shielded Lydia.
My back hit the shelf hard, pain shooting through me, but at least I stopped her from tearing up more.
“Adriana, haven’t you caused enough trouble?”
He glared coldly. “Didn’t you want a divorce? Then get out of my house.”
Lydia hid behind him, a triumphant smirk on her lips.
I looked at the torn sketches, then at Lucas’s indifference.
My final shred of hope vanished completely.
Without a word, I crouched and gathered the pieces one by one.
Each torn scrap felt like a fragment of my crushed heart.
That night, I contacted a top private investigator with only one request: obtain solid evidence of Lucas’s infidelity as quickly as possible.
He worked fast.
Three days later, the file arrived in my email.
Sure enough, when Lucas suddenly demanded that I become independent, he was already having an affair with Lydia.
When my parents were critically ill and begged him to come back with me, he claimed he was busy with an important project, yet he was actually traveling across Europe with Lydia.
At my parents’ funeral, when he said returning wouldn’t bring them back to life, he was actually accompanying Lydia’s mother on a sightseeing trip.
The documents contained even more records of his affairs.
The contract for the luxury house he bought for Lydia using marital assets.
The limited-edition sports car he purchased for her.
The spending records from the supplementary credit card he opened under her name.
Every item, every detail, was devastating.
I packaged all the evidence and sent it to my lawyer, including proof that Lydia had swapped my daily calcium supplements with low-quality birth control pills.
“I’m filing for divorce. I want him to walk away with nothing.”
The lawyer quickly responded:
“The evidence is very strong; your chance of winning is high.” With that confirmation, I called my uncle:
“You don’t need to support Lucas anymore. I’m coming back to inherit Grandpa’s business.” I bought a ticket for the next flight to Freeland.
It was time to return to the life that should have been mine.
Meanwhile, Lucas’s inbox was overflowing with termination notices from clients.
His assistant, pale-faced, rushed into the office, staring at the flood of emails:
“Mr. Sterling, something terrible has happened…”
