My CEO husband told me he had a last-minute job to handle. He said that because of it, he couldn't accompany me to retrieve the body.

Then I went online and saw a photo my husband's secretary had posted as a birthday status update.

[Thanks for the red velvet cake, Mr. Mitchell! Happy birthday to me!]

I smiled and left a comment.

[Happy birthday.]

That single comment sparked a frenzy among my colleagues. They immediately began placing bets on how big of a scene I would make.

Then he called.

"Lucy is just celebrating her birthday, Brianna! Why do you have to ruin it by showing up in the comments?! Don't you know how sensitive she is? How is she supposed to feel comfortable at work now?!

"She's only been here for two years. She doesn't even have any friends! What's wrong with me looking out for an employee and keeping her company on her birthday? A lucky girl who grew up in a wealthy family like you wouldn't understand!

"If you want to talk about this, fine. Wait until I get back. But delete that comment right now! We can always wait another few days before retrieving his body. Where is your father going to go anyway? He's already dead!"

I clenched my fist and replied, "That won't be necessary."

By the time he returned, we would already be legally divorced.

Lance Mitchell hung up in a fit of rage.

I stopped on my way to the hospital, adjusted the single white lily pinned to my chest, and walked inside.

My phone vibrated. Lucinda Tanning had updated her status. It was a lengthy, faux-apologetic post about how she never meant to offend me and simply wanted to share the joy and celebration of her birthday.

Just like her previous post, she made sure to tag me. In less than a minute, it had already attracted hundreds of likes.

It was a crass, inelegant, and unmistakable act of provocation, yet Lance somehow couldn't see it. He was known for being a shrewd strategist, so I doubted he was truly blind to her intentions. He simply chose to play along with the charade.

[Can't a girl even share something about her life? Does she have to apologize for being thin-skinned now?]

[I know. It was just a normal birthday celebration. She got targeted over something so harmless. That's what narcissists do, I guess. They're also soooooo dramatic.]

…

The comment section was full of people defending Lucinda, and honestly, I wasn't surprised in the slightest. These colleagues were only there because she had gotten them hired.

Hiring and firing employees weren't decisions a mere secretary could make. She could only do so because Lance abused his authority as CEO and backed her every step of the way. She quickly filled the workplace with loyalists while pushing out anyone who ever stood up for me.

A while later, Lance added a comment of his own.

Lance: [The company is like a family. Please treat it as one. I'm sure you're all aware of certain malicious intentions from an outside party, but I urge you not to pay them any mind.]

He never identified the "outside party," but everyone knew who he meant. Lucinda even pinned his comment to the top.

Their little performance bored me, so I closed the app.

After I handed my identification documents to the hospital staff, they escorted me to the mortuary.

My father lay inside the metallic drawer, his face ashen and bloodless.

It was hard to believe this was the same man who had promised, just two days earlier, that he would come visit and stay with me for a while. Here, he looked utterly lifeless.

I blinked back tears.

When I first received the news, I called Lance immediately. He told me he needed to leave on a business trip.

"The police won't release the body until they've completed their investigation, so just wait for me. Don't worry about it."

Then, despite all my pleading, he left for his trip.

Five hours later, he appeared in Lucinda's status update.

So his business was Lucinda's birthday. His trip was to her place.

"The weather has been quite warm lately, so it would be difficult to continue storing Mr. Carter's body here. We recommend proceeding with cremation as soon as possible," one of the staff members said as he handed me a document acknowledging the release of the body.

I signed the document, and the cremation proceeded.

There was no need to inform my mother. My parents had already divorced, and my father never remarried. My grandparents were too old for news like this.

During the process, a colleague sent me a screenshot of Lucinda's latest status. It showed two three-day passes to a famous theme park.

I searched the social media site, only to discover that she had blocked me.

A message popped up in the chat: [Brianna, do you know Mr. Mitchell's taking Lucinda on a trip?]

I tightened my grip on my phone. The message wasn't sent out of concern for me. It was just another one of Lucinda's lackeys doing her dirty work. She had no shortage of toadies eager to provoke me and fish for a reaction.

I turned off the screen and carried my father's urn with me to the courthouse.

Our divorce agreement had already been prepared the month before. Lance had signed it without hesitation.

Back then…

Watching him approve it without even checking the contents prompted me to ask, "Are you sure you don't want to read what's written there?"

He set down his pen and pushed the document back toward me.

"Why? I trust you enough!" he said impatiently.

The Lance I knew in the past would never have relied on trust alone. No matter how meticulous I was, he always reviewed my reports himself to ensure everything was up to standard.

None of that applied to Lucinda. Every document she submitted passed without review. I had voiced my concerns before, but he was completely unfazed.

"The document is complicated. I might end up requesting amendments that make things worse because I made mistakes while reviewing it."

"If a complicated document could confuse you, why wouldn't it confuse Lucinda?" I argued.

He chuckled. "She's my secretary. Of course I trust her."

…

At the time, I thought he had simply changed. Then I watched him draft three different project proposals for Lucinda as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, and I realized it wasn't trust that had made him stop reviewing documents and reading the fine print. He simply had something more important to him.

A month had passed since we submitted our divorce agreement. It was time to make it official.

The clerk handed me a form and said, "We need Mr. Mitchell to be here and sign this personally before it can be finalized. Where is he?"

I checked Lance's flight details. "He's taken his new girlfriend on a trip."

The clerk paused and looked at me sympathetically. "I see. Still, we need at least a verbal confirmation from Mr. Mitchell to proceed if he cannot be here in person."

I nodded and called him.

It took three attempts before he finally answered at the end of the third call.

"How dare you call me when you still haven't deleted that comment like I told you to?! She's still waiting for your apology! If you're not going to do those things, then we're never retrieving your father's body from the hospital!" he barked the moment he answered.

It was his favorite tactic. Whenever I refused to do what he wanted, he resorted to threats. He was especially fond of using them whenever the issue involved Lucinda. If she felt upset, he would immediately assume that I was at fault and demand an apology, regardless of the truth.

One time, I needed surgery after a serious injury, and a direct family member had to sign the consent form. He told me I had to apologize to Lucinda or he would refuse to sign it. If my condition worsened to the point that I had to lose a leg, all the better. It would be a lesson I would never forget, he had said.

After that, he hung up.

I tried calling again, but he had already switched off his phone.

"This tells you his position on the matter, right?" I asked.

The clerk nodded and continued processing my paperwork while I waited for more than 20 minutes with my father's urn resting on my lap.

Many people in the hall noticed me and looked at me with pity.

I brushed my fingers lightly through his ashes.

Then, suddenly, Lance called.

"Where are you?! Why aren't you at the company?!"

I stared out the window in silence. He didn't ask any further questions. He never really cared where I was.

"Wherever you are, go to Lucy's house and feed her goldfish. Also, clean and tidy her room while you're there," he demanded.

"No, let's not ask Brianna to do that. She's already busy enough as it is!" Lucinda said worriedly from the side. "I can just hire a cleaning service."

Lance wasn't the least bit fazed.

"If she were really busy, she'd be in her office instead of coasting on past achievements and wasting valuable work hours scrolling through social media!" he snarled. "She didn't even apologize to you. In fact, she had the nerve to throw a tantrum over some well-deserved criticism!"

I clenched my fist.

The company's success was the result of both our efforts. My projects had consistently generated returns on our investments over the years. Yet instead of showing gratitude, he repaid me by systematically stripping away my authority within the company.

I had let it slide time and again because, at the end of the day, this was the man I had married and promised to spend the rest of my life with.

However, he didn't stop there. Instead, he used his authority as CEO to promote Lucinda and grant her powers and privileges that no secretary could, or should, possess. He had deliberately silenced anyone who spoke out against it.

One time, Lucinda forgot she had an entire proposal to draft. The client was so furious that the deal nearly fell through.

Lance still wanted to protect her, so he blamed me and demanded that I take responsibility.

"Do you know how wrong you are, Brianna?!" he snarled.

I nodded to myself. "I sure know how wrong I was now."

This marriage had lasted a decade. I couldn't believe I had been blind for so long, trapping myself in this torment for all those years. I was ridiculous.

He seemed pleased with my answer. Even his tone softened. "Then you should make amends. You can start by feeding her goldfish before cleaning her room. And I do mean putting in some elbow grease."

I could almost hear my bones creak as I clenched my fists tighter. "Not a chance."

His voice rose sharply. "What did you just say?!"

I hung up before he could launch into another torrent of verbal abuse.

The clerk handed me a notice. "The review process takes three days. Please be patient."

I nodded. Three days was enough time. Lance should be back by then.

…

The first thing I did after getting home was arrange a memorial service for my father.

I wrote and posted his obituary on my account: [I've lost another person who truly loved me today.]

The post immediately drew skepticism.

One commenter wrote: [What a high-level narcissistic attention-seeker. Is she using her dad to get Mr. Mitchell's attention now?!]

Many of my online "friends" were actually employees and colleagues I had once supervised, but most of them were close to Lucinda. Very few believed me when I said my father had passed away.

…

My father had opposed our marriage at first. After seeing how much I wanted to be with Lance, he softened his stance and finally gave his blessing.

But the experience had left a wound on Lance's ego that never healed. Over the past ten years, he had never once shared a meal with my father. He had never even referred to him as his father-in-law. I had explained why my father had been reserved at first, but Lance never listened.

Then one day, I overheard a conversation between him and Lucinda. Apparently, he had never wanted to acknowledge my father because he was originally "just a backwater bumpkin." In Lance's eyes, my father was beneath him. He mocked him and treated him like garbage.

At the same time, though, he called Lucinda's father "Dad." That man was nothing more than a construction worker!

The room originally reserved for my father had been forcibly converted into a storage room. Lance was that opposed to my father's presence. Every time my father came to visit me, he had to stay in a hotel. A millionaire forced to stay in a budget inn every single visit. No one would have believed it if I told them.

…

A group gathered at the door. They were my relatives from my father's side of the family, so I welcomed them inside and served refreshments.

"Brianna, dear... I'm sorry for your loss," one of them said. "You were all he had left."

Laura, one of my distant relatives, arrived in an elegant dress. She scanned the room and asked, "Where's Lance?"