“Go on. Start talking.”

“Teach everyone how a man takes the salary his benefactor gives him, then sleeps with his benefactor's wife.”

“And while you're at it, teach them how you get another man's wife pregnant with your child.”

The color drained from Sebastian's face in an instant.

He instinctively shrank behind Sally.

“Sally……”

Sally's expression turned glacial.

She reached out, blocking the lens, fury barely leashed beneath her voice.

“Ulysses, that's enough.”

“You're upset right now. I understand that.”

“But you can't destroy a young man's whole life just because you're hurting!”

“Yes, Sebastian made a mistake.”

“But it wasn't easy for him, clawing his way out of the backwoods on his own all these years.”

“One word from you, and he loses his job, his reputation, everything he fought so hard to earn.”

“Do you think that's fair?”

I stared at her, almost laughing out loud.

Reading my silence as surrender, Sally softened.

“Ulysses, put the phone down first.”

“You're my husband. I won't shortchange you.”

“Just don't turn yourself into some sore loser who can't take a hit.”

Sore loser. Those words landed, and the last ripple inside me went still.

I looked at her and asked softly：

“So this is going too far?”

Sally blinked, thrown.

The next second.

I raised my hand and slapped Sebastian hard across the face.

The crack of it rang through the entire lounge.

His head snapped sideways, five red welts blooming across his cheek.

I shook out my stinging hand.

“I haven't even gotten to the part that goes too far yet.”

That was when Sally finally lost it.

She lunged forward and shoved me with both hands.

The small of my back slammed into the corner of the table. Pain blacked out my vision.

The prenatal checkup slip fell from my hand to the floor.

Sally didn't even glance at it.

She went straight to Sebastian, gathering him into her arms, sheltering him.

“Ulysses!”

“How did you turn into this?”

Her eyes were full of disappointment when she looked at me.

As if I were the one who'd done something wrong.

“You used to be the kindest man I knew.”

“Sebastian had such a hard childhood. Weren't you the one who ached for him the most?”

“And now, just because he fell in love with me, you want to ruin him?”

A strange laugh rose in me.

She said I'd changed.

But Sally.

Who was it that turned sickening first?

And just like that, I remembered something from long ago.

The first time Sally proposed to me, she was so nervous she couldn't even get the ring box open.

Eyes red, she slid the ring onto my finger and said：

“Ulysses, getting to stand beside you in this life is more luck than I deserve.”

“No matter how high I climb someday, I'll always remember it was you who pulled me up.”

Back then she was raw, sincere, with no one in her eyes but me.

And now, that face that once cradled my hand and made its vows.

It slowly blurred into the face in front of me, the one shielding Sebastian and demanding to know how I'd become this.

And suddenly, I was calm.

I hadn't changed.

The woman who swore she'd never betray me.

She'd died the day she betrayed me for the first time.

I didn't say another word.

I turned and walked out of the office.

Behind me, Sebastian was still crying softly.

“Sally, is Ulysses really going to ruin me?”

Sally lowered her voice to soothe him：

“No. As long as I'm here, no one can touch you.”

“Though, how are you going to thank me?”

Sebastian's tears turned to a grin. He gave Sally a light, playful punch, voice melting into a whine.

“Sally, there you go teasing me again……”

I didn't slow my pace. I dialed the head of my legal team directly.

“Notify the board.”

“Suspend every authorization Sally James holds within the group. Freeze all of her assets.”

“Revoke every access permission under Sebastian Henson's name.”

A beat of silence on the other end.

“Mr. Gilbert, about Ms. James……”

I looked down at the prenatal report, dirty now where it had been ground under a heel.

“As of this moment, there is no Ms. James at this company.”

That afternoon, the system locked Sally out of every permission she had.

Sebastian fared worse.

When HR set the termination notice down in front of him, the color drained from his face.

Sally finally understood that I wasn't throwing a tantrum.

She called me a dozen times.

I didn't pick up once.

At eight that night, I'd just stepped out of the board meeting when the driver didn't take the usual route home.

The car turned down a road I didn't recognize.

I lifted my head, looking toward the front seat：

“Where are we going?”

The driver didn't dare meet my eyes.

“Mr. Gilbert, Miss James said you've been working too hard lately.”

“She asked me to take you to the suburban villa to rest for a few days.”

The next second, the doors locked on their own, and my phone lost signal.

When the car stopped, Sally was already waiting at the door.

She'd changed her clothes, her face dark, a layer of restless agitation pressed beneath her eyes.

“Ulysses, let's talk.”

I looked at her and let out a scornful laugh：

“Talk? By kidnapping me?”

She frowned.

“I was just afraid you'd act on impulse and blow this up past the point of fixing.”

“You're emotionally unstable right now. You're in no state to keep fighting over the company.”

“Restore my authorizations, and sign a new share-proxy agreement.”

“From now on, you leave the company to me first.”

She nearly drove me to laughter.

Sally led me into the living room.

The documents were already laid out on the table.

She pushed the pen toward me.

“Sign it, and we're still husband and wife.”

“I can promise you that.”

“From now on, there won't be anyone besides Sebastian.”

I raised my eyes to her, barely able to believe what I'd just heard.

And yet Sally looked as though she thought she'd made some enormous concession.

“Ulysses, you grew up in this world too.”

“You should know, those women out there, which of them doesn't have seven or eight lovers on the side?”

“All I want is you and Sebastian.”

“You're my husband, the Gilbert heir, my respectability in public.”

“He's been with me so long, and the child in my belly is his. I can't let him down either.”

“This family can still go on just fine.”

So this was how Sally saw it.

I should count myself lucky that she was willing to let me go on being her husband.

In that moment, I genuinely wanted to be sick.

I picked up the pen, and Sally's expression finally eased a fraction.

I lowered my head and looked at the share-proxy agreement.

Then I lifted my hand and tore it in two.

Sally's face went completely cold.

“Ulysses Gilbert, don't push me.”

I threw the shredded paper in her face and laughed in scorn.

“You think you're fit to run my company?”

The last trace of warmth in Sally's eyes vanished completely.

She gave a cold order to the bodyguards：

“Take the gentleman upstairs.”

“When he's thought it through, he can come back out.”

Two bodyguards stepped forward and seized me, one on each side.

My voice went cold.

“Sally James, you wouldn't dare.”

She looked at me, her tone somehow still gentle.

“Ulysses, I'm doing this for your own good.”

“Once you've calmed down, you'll understand.”

The door slammed shut behind me.

The lock turned. The windows were sealed. My phone was gone.

One dim yellow lamp. That was all the room had left.

I braced myself against the wall, the small of my back pulsing with pain.

Cold sweat broke out down my spine.

Downstairs, Sally's voice drifted up.

“Don't let him out tonight.”

“The moment he signs the contract is the moment we let him go.”

Sebastian gave a soft little laugh.

It was a quiet sound, but it drove into my ears like a needle.

“So if Ulysses hears us down here, you think it'll wreck him even more?”

“Or maybe……”

His voice dropped lower, but he let the last syllable climb on purpose.

“Maybe it'd make things more exciting?”

My fingertips dug hard into my palm.

Sally stayed quiet for a moment.

When she spoke again, her voice came out a little hoarse.

“Sebastian, stop it.”

“You really shouldn't have provoked him today.”

Sebastian let out a wounded little huff.

“Then punish me. Like last time……”

A faint rustle of fabric carried up from downstairs.

For a second, Sally's breathing seemed to falter.

I closed my eyes.

My palm clenched around the signal beacon hidden inside my sleeve.

My sister, Glenda Gilbert, had given it to me a long time ago.

She'd said：

“Ulysses, that woman is far too ambitious.”

“You love her. I can't stop that.”

“But remember this. When you've got nowhere left to turn, press this.”

“I'll be there within ten minutes. Guaranteed.”

Back then I'd laughed at her for blowing things out of proportion.

Turns out my sister had always seen clearer than I did.

Sally thought she had me trapped.

Too bad she didn't know.

People who grow up in this world.

They never leave themselves only one way out.

With the last of my strength, I pressed the beacon.

The instant the red light flared, Sebastian's laughter was still going downstairs.

Sally lowered her voice, coaxing him.

“Ulysses can't hold out much longer.”

“Once he comes to his senses, he'll come crawling back to beg me.”

“He broke with the Gilberts for me. Without me, he's nothing.”

Sebastian asked in a coy little voice：

“And the Gilberts?”

“If his sister finds out, won't she come after you?”

Sally was silent for a beat.

Then she scoffed.

“Glenda Gilbert can be as formidable as she likes. She still can't meddle in a marriage.”

“I'm his wife.”

“As long as he still cares about me, the Gilberts will never actually touch me.”

I leaned against the side of the bed, the pain leaving my temples slick with cold sweat.

When I heard that, I suddenly laughed.

Sally, you still don't understand the Gilberts.

Years ago, I broke with my family for you.

But Glenda never once gave up on me.

In the distance, a thunderous roar broke the night.

Row after row of black SUVs screeched to a halt at the villa gates.

Bodyguards in black suits poured out of the cars and sealed off the entire courtyard in seconds.

The villa's front door was kicked open from outside.