When the bank calls me to collect the first round of mortgages from me, do I realize that my wife, Denise Sheridan, also the same woman who eats leftovers and saves every single penny with me in our daily lives, has bought my brother-in-law, Dmitri Sheridan, two prime mansions located near a school.

While Dmitri is placed as the mansion deed holder, I'm the one who's supposed to clear off the mortgages.

I hurl the purchasing contract to the floor in fury.

"You said Nancy's leukemia requires a shit ton of money, so I've been saving up my whole life. I even went as far as to work ten jobs per day!

"My dad had to sell his kidney in exchange for a term of Nancy's chemotherapy bills because you told me the money wasn't enough at all. But thanks to the shady hospital, he died on the surgical table!

"And yet, now you've used the money that Dad and I had put our blood, sweat, and tears into earning to buy mansions for Dmitri! Do you even have a conscience?"

"What happened to your dad was destined to be! Sure, we could always make more money if we have more treatment bills to cover, but Dmitri's case is different! He urgently needs money for his marriage!" Denise refutes in a righteous way.

I'm about to lash out at her when my daughter, Nancy Sheridan, rushes out.

"Dad, Uncle Dmitri is the hope of our family! I don't mind giving him money to spend!"

At that moment, I finally realize that not only am I this household's ATM, but my own daughter is also an ingrate through and through.

"Nini, Daddy is making the money needed for your treatment—"

"I don't need it!" Nancy Sheridan, my daughter, screamed in my ear as she kept hitting me repeatedly.

"Uncle Dmitri is the family's future! You don't know anything because you're just an outsider! You're not even a Sheridan!

"Uncle Dmitri told me that once he got married and gave birth to a son, he would be the one carrying the family legacy to the next generation!

"You're petty and stupid, and you keep using me as an excuse every time you can't make any money!" she continued to holler while pointing her finger in my face.

"I hate it when you go DoorDashing on your motorcycle and get all smelly and sweaty all over! You don't even deserve to lick the mud off Uncle Dmitri's boots!"

Nancy's scream nearly pierced through my eardrums, and my outstretched hand froze mid-air just as I was about to grab her hand.

Back then, I had felt sorry for my wife, Denise Sheridan, for all the pains and trouble she went through while being pregnant with Nancy. I was also considerate of her upbringing, in which her parents had also favored her brother, Dmitri, over her. And so, I suggested that Nancy take her last name instead of mine.

But in the end, this was the main reason why they now all treated me like an outsider who didn't share their last name.

Denise seemed to have realized that Nancy had gone overboard with her words, so she quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Honey, Nini's still too young to understand. I also only said such words because I'd lost my temper earlier. Don't mind her…"

Was Nancy really still that young? She was already ten years old, for crying out loud. She should already know how to tell right from wrong at that age.

And even so, if she really didn't understand the severity of her words, who was the one she had learned them from, anyway?

I looked at Denise's guilty eyes and found it ironic.

Back then, I had come from a poor village, and we were barely scraping by. Denise used to sit on the back of my beat-up bicycle with her arms tightly around my waist, saying, "Aiken, I don't need you to be rich. I just need you to treat me well."

"As long as we're both on the same page, I don't care even if we can only afford to live on bread and cheese for the rest of our lives."

I had felt so touched then, and brought her straight home to meet my parents.

Dad spoke to me in private.

"This woman won't do. She has a sharp tongue and also looks very fierce."

I didn't believe Dad and said, "But Dad, Denise didn't have it easy growing up either. She's a kind woman who knows how to take care of others."

So, I ignored the protests from my family and stubbornly married her anyway.

After getting married, I didn't want her to suffer the same way I did, so I made sure to give her all of my pay.

We didn't earn a lot back then, but it was just enough for us to make ends meet.

After a while, Denise said that she wanted to have a child, and that we should start preparing for it. I agreed. And so, we began eating even less, sometimes leftovers for days, and shopping for out-of-season clothes at thrift shops, but I never once complained about it.

Then, Nancy was born, and she was plagued by a terminal illness.

To keep her alive, and for the sake of my family, I worked myself to the bone, juggling between working as a sales associate in the morning, DoorDashing in the afternoon, and being an Uber driver at night. When it was the weekends, I would take high-risk installation jobs that paid more.

I worked so hard that I developed a herniated disc in my lower back, and the pain was so bad that I couldn't even straighten my back. Yet, the thought of my family needing me made me grit my teeth and persevere anyway.

But now, they told me that at least three-quarters of all the money I'd earned with my blood and sweat was pocketed by somebody else. In fact, the three-quarter total included the money made from Dad selling his kidney for Nancy's treatment.

It was simply ridiculous.

The wife whom I'd loved for 12 years, and the daughter I'd cherished for ten, both ended up treating me like nothing but their personal cash cow.

When Denise saw that I wasn't responding to her, her expression immediately darkened.

"Aiken Collins! Don't push your luck! I'm only doing this so that this family will have someone to rely on in the future!

"If you think you're oh-so-capable after all, then why don't you go and make even more money instead?

"You're so useless and incompetent, and yet still so petty! Why are you even making such a huge fuss over two houses? Can you even call yourself a man? Can't you just be a little more generous instead?"

Denise glared angrily at me like I didn't know what I was talking about or what was best for me.

"Fine!" I said with a nod, grabbing the housing purchase agreement and tearing it up into shreds.

"Since you say that Dmitri is the future of your family, then you and Nancy can go live with him for the rest of your lives! I'm done with this. I'm getting a divorce!"

"A divorce? Really, Aiken Collins? Why don't you just look at yourself in the mirror instead?" Denise called out.

I turned and strode out of the house while Denise continued screaming after me.

"Who else will still want a useless bastard like you once you've divorced me anyway? You're dirt poor and petty, and you have a daughter with leukemia who's going to drain all your savings anyway!"

I slammed the door shut behind me—that heavy, metal anti-theft door that had been sucking all the money out of me over the past ten years.

Now, it only served to block out all the evil coming from within.

I fished out my phone, which had its screen shattered, and made a call to a number that I hadn't dared to contact for five years despite saving it.

"Hello? Paul? It's me, Aiken.

"I'd like to come back to work in the research and development department, please. I don't mind starting over as an intern either."

Back then, when I needed to earn quick money for Nancy's treatment, I gave up my dream career as a researcher and began delivering food, parcels, working as an Uber driver, doing physical labor, and even selling my blood in the black market.

Now, I wanted to live like a normal human being again.

Half an hour later, Paul Wellington looked at me in great shock.

"What did you do to make yourself turn out like this?"

He quickly stuffed a wad of crumpled-up bills into my hand and said, "Take this. It's only about a thousand dollars. Go and settle yourself down first.

"We've already saved a spot in the technical R&D department for you. We all know about your plight. You're always welcome to return anytime."

I took the cash with trembling hands and nodded heavily.

I managed to rent a cheap apartment in a run-down building in a slightly more rural part of the city. The place was filled with mold, yet I couldn't have felt any more liberated at that moment.

I showered with ice-cold water and nibbled on some stale buns I'd gotten on sale as my dinner.

My phone vibrated just then. The called ID on the screen showed that it was Dmitri, the bastard who'd just used my hard-earned money to buy two mansions in the upscale part of town.

I answered the call.

There was a bout of fake laughter on the other end of the line.

"Come on, Aiken. Don't be mad. What's there to stay angry about between husband and wife?

"How about this? I'll transfer a hundred dollars to you so that you can have a good meal outside. You know that I've only just bought my house, and so, I'm a little tight at the moment. I hope you don't think that I'm being too stingy."

One hundred dollars.

Dmitri thought that he could use a measly hundred dollars to exchange for ten years of my hard-earned savings and Dad's kidney.

Before I could speak, however, I could hear Nancy's childish yet harsh words on the phone.

"Uncle Dmitri! Why are you even giving him any money?

"That bastard's only trying to scam you out of your money! Save it for your cigarettes instead!"

I could hear Denise agreeing with her afterward.

"Exactly. You're being too kind to him, Dimi. An ingrate like him deserves to die alone outside. There's no need to care about him!"

Dmitri sighed and sounded helpless on the phone.

"See, Aiken, it's not that I don't want to help you. You're just a huge disappointment for the entire family."

He hung up right after that.

A short while later, Denise uploaded a new story on her account.

It was a video with Lakeview Mansion as the background, the mansion that they had just paid for. There was a huge spread of roast ham, fresh lobster, mashed potatoes, and all the side dishes laid out on an extravagant table in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, paired with some expensive wine as well.

Denise held a wineglass in her hand, a rosy glow on her cheeks.

"Congrats, Dimi, for buying your new home! Finally, someone from the Sheridan family made it to the top!"

Nancy was smiling brightly while hugging Dmitri's leg.

"This is our home from now on! The air smells so much fresher now that Smelly Daddy isn't here anymore!"

At the end of the video, Dmitri posed at the camera with a "peace" sign, a provocative look in his eyes.

"By the way, Aiken, this lobster is so fresh and juicy, but unfortunately for you, you'll never be able to taste it. Enjoy your moldy bread!"

I set down my phone and took another bite of the stale bread in my hands. For some reason, I could taste something rusty and metallic in it.

Memories from three months ago surfaced in my mind.

It was a dark underground operating theater, and Dad was lying on a filthy operating table, all for the sake of purchasing the "specialized drug" worth 10,000 dollars needed for Nancy's treatment.

He sold his kidney for that.

Before Dad died, his scrawny hands gripped the hem of my shirt, his eyes pleading and hesitant.

"Ken… The money… Use it for Nini's…treatment… Don't make her suffer…"

Later that day, Denise held the blood money of 10,000 dollars in her hand and smiled as she said to me, "Dad passed peacefully. We should all be happy for him."

As it turned out, Denise had already been planning to use the money as the down payment for Lakeview Mansion ever since then.

I swallowed the blood in my mouth, along with the rest of my stale buns.

"Really, Aiken Collins? What a waste of the last ten years of your life," I muttered to myself.

My phone buzzed again, and this time, it was a call from the bank.

"Mr. Collins, the repayment for the loan under your name is a day late. Kindly make the necessary payments as soon as possible, or it will affect your credit score."

I chuckled coldly.

"The property is not registered under my name. Go and chase after the person who actually signed your contract."

"But Mr. Collins, the loan you took out was a joint loan—"

"Then go ahead and sue me."

I hung up and blocked the number at once.

Less than two minutes later, Denise began calling me over and over again, one after another, and I never picked up a single one.

She switched to a different number after that and sent me dozens of voice messages instead.

The first one was of her screaming hysterically at me.

"Aiken Collins! How dare you fail to repay the loan? Do you know that the bank ended up calling Dimi instead? Are you trying to ruin him?

"Hurry up and make the payment at once! If the mansion gets repossessed because of you, I'm never going to forgive you, ever!"

I silenced my phone and stuffed it into my pocket. Then, I turned and walked through the company doors.

There was a massive crowd of people gathered in the lobby.

Denise was in the center of attraction, her hair all askew as she made a huge, dramatic fuss on the couch while mumbling nonsense under her breath.

"Look, everybody! This is Aiken Collins, from this company, and he's a horrible ingrate who abandoned his wife and sick daughter for no good reason!

"He abandoned his daughter, who has leukemia, at home, and instead spent all of his days in pubs and clubs with all sorts of women by his side!

"How could a company still want to hire a bastard like him? Are you not afraid of any repercussions?"

Nancy also cried along with Denise, her face as red as a tomato.

My colleagues began whispering among themselves and even pointing fingers at me.

I stood outside the crowd, looking at Denise and Nancy. They were the two people whom I'd nearly given up my life trying to protect. And yet, they took out all of our savings, used it to pay for Dmitri's down payment, and even tarnished my reputation to completely destroy my life.

I weaved through the crowd and marched forward.

"Are you done spouting nonsense?"

Denise immediately leaped up from the couch when she saw me. She rushed up to grab me by my collar.

"Aiken Collins! You're finally here!

"Give me the money! Dmitri's loan repayments cannot be interrupted! And give me the money for Nini's treatment next month!

"If you don't give me the money, then I will kill myself here! I'll show everyone what a heartless person you are—the man who forced his wife and daughter to their deaths!"

I ducked and neatly avoided her hands. She ended up grabbing air and nearly tripped on her feet.

Nancy threw herself at me instead and began biting my thigh.

"You're a horrible Daddy! Give us the money! Give us the money!"

I kicked her off at once.

It wasn't a powerful kick, but it was enough to shake her off.

Nancy was shocked. She didn't seem to think that the father who'd always given in to her biting and beating would actually fight back this time.

So, she began screaming and crying even louder.

Denise was outraged. "How dare you kick Nini! You're even worse than an animal, Aiken Collins! Nini has leukemia! Don't you have any conscience left?"

The murmurs and allegations around us grew louder. Some of them even began recording us on video.

I looked at Denise coldly and spoke in a clear voice, just loud enough that everyone could hear me.

"Leukemia?

"Denise Sheridan, Nini's health checkup report from last month proved that all of her indicators have long been normal.

"The so-called relapse you claim is just another one of your lies to trick me into giving you more money for your brother's renovation at his new house, isn't it?"

The entire lobby went silent. Only Denise's pale face and Nancy's broken sobs were left.

Denise quickly grabbed the phone in her pocket, her gaze wavering as she spat, "W-What nonsense is that?

"The doctor said that there was an error on the report! She would relapse anytime! We need to have enough savings for when it happens!"

I chuckled. "Savings? Well, what about the 10,000 dollars you got after my dad sold his kidney? And the 50,000 dollars compensation I received after breaking my leg while working at a construction site?

"They're all invested in both of Dmitri's mansions now, aren't they?"

I then retrieved a stack of financial transfer records I'd printed out and a photocopy of the housing purchase agreement I'd torn up and stuck back together with tape, throwing them into the air.

"Look at this instead, everyone! This is what she means by my 'abandoning' her and my daughter!

"She used the money from her husband and father-in-law to buy two massive mansions for her younger brother instead! Who would dare to keep around a woman like her?"

My colleagues picked up the documents from the ground, and their expressions changed dramatically.

Their judgmental gazes on me eventually switched to that of disdain and disgust as they shifted to Denise instead, treating her like trash.