My father suffered a heart attack and collapsed. Emergency treatment required the installation of a cardiac stent. I asked my husband to approve an expense of 10 thousand dollars for the surgery.
Cameron Lister, the CEO, refused coldly, "The company and family accounts have been frozen recently because of a major project. Your father has medical insurance, so just use a cost-effective domestic stent for now."
He was the sole administrator of all the bank cards in my family. His reply made me sorrowfully realize something. Even though I was a genius architectural designer with an annual income of 600 thousand dollars, I was still not worthy of choosing a better life-saving device for my own father.
It was a Twitter post forwarded by a colleague, freshly and gleefully posted by the company intern Wendy.
[Cameron is so nice. I just said I liked painting, and he gave me a million dollars to organize an art exhibition. I love him so much!]
I looked at my father lying on an extra bed in the hospital corridor, groaning in pain, and then looked at the photo of them sweetly embracing each other.
I finally understood that Cameron had perhaps never truly loved me.
He had only treated me as a stepping stone for his soaring career, and as a tool for him to exploit without limits.
'If this is what you want, Cameron, then don't blame me for being ruthless,' I said inwardly.
My father was lying on an extra bed in the corridor of the emergency room, his face ashen pale.
The doctor handed me the surgical consent form, the tip of his pen tapping on the number.
"Nina, more than 90 % of your father's aorta is blocked. Imported covered stents has better biocompatibility than domestic ones, but at least two would be required. Emergency treatment, surgery, and postoperative care will cost over 60 thousand dollars. You needed to prepay 10 thousand dollars first."
10 thousand dollars, for me—a chief architectural designer with an annual salary of 600 thousand dollars—had been no more than the price of a luxury brand bag.
I took out my bank card and handed it to the nurse.
"Beep—insufficient balance."
The nurse frowned. "Ma'am, you’ve only got 60 dollars in this card."
I froze and dialed Cameron's number.
"Cameron." My voice trembled. "Dad suddenly had a heart attack and needs a stent urgently. The hospital is asking for a 10 thousand dollars deposit. Where’s the money in my bank account?"
There was silence on the other end of the line for two seconds before Cameron's cold voice came through. "The company has recently been bidding for the Summit Project. All funds have been locked in the guarantee account, and the family account has also been drawn to provide joint guarantees."
I panicked as soon as I heard that. "But this is money to save our dad's life! I only need 10 thousand dollars. As the CEO of Lister Group, don’t you even have 10 thousand dollars to spare?"
Cameron's tone immediately became impatient. "If I say I don't have it, then I don't have it. Doesn't your father have medical insurance? Why can't a cheap domestic stent be used? Do you really need to be superstitious about imported stents?"
"But Cameron, that's my dad. We’re not short of money!"
"Nina, stop making a fuss. I'm still with some clients at an art exhibition. I've gotta go."
The busy tone stabbed into my eardrums like an ice pick.
An art exhibition?
Before I could even process those three words, my phone vibrated.
It was a Twitter post forwarded by a colleague, freshly and gleefully posted by the company intern Wendy.
The first photo showed her in a custom haute couture gown, standing under the spotlight, with a huge abstract painting behind her.
The caption read: [Cameron is so nice. I just said I liked painting, and he gave me a million dollars to organize an art exhibition. I love him so much!]
The second photo captured them in a passionate embrace, and the third showed Cameron holding a glass of champagne and looking at Wendy, his gaze so doting it was almost suffocating.
This was my so-called husband, who was the CEO of a company.
My father had been struggling on the brink of life and death, yet I failed to get 10 thousand dollars from my husband to save him..
His little assistant had only acted coy for a moment, and he decided to spend a million dollars on her.
I stared at the photos, my heart aching to the core.
After a long while, I finally heard the nurse urging me from the side. "Ms. Jackson, which type of stent are you choosing? If this drags on any longer, the patient may be in danger."
I raised my head and looked through the glass window at my father's body, curled up in pain.
"Let’s use the imported stents. I'll have the deposit in place immediately."
The moment I signed my name, I felt as though I was left with absolutely no dignity at all.
I let out a self-mocking, bitter smile.
Cameron, in three years of marriage, I had drawn hundreds of design plans for you—each one a cornerstone of the Lister Group's rise.
Yet to you, my father's life wasn’t even worth 10 thousand dollars.
Was my love and dedication really inferior to a little assistant who had only just appeared by your side?
My father's surgery hadn’t gone smoothly, and the post-transplant rejection had been severe. He was transferred to the ICU.
I kept vigil outside the doors all night without sleep.
Early the next morning, I dragged my stiff body back home.
When I pushed the door open, a pair of red-soled high heels lay in the hallway.
In the living room, Cameron was having breakfast.
A fried egg, black coffee, and a freshly delivered financial newspaper.
When he saw me, he furrowed his brows slightly. "Why do you look so disheveled? You're covered in the smell of disinfectant."
I did not change my shoes and walked straight over to sit across from him. "Dad was admitted to the ICU. Things were critical last night."
He continued eating. "People get sick when they're old. I'll have an assistant send a fruit basket over to the ICU. Oh right, you need to revise the design plans for the Summit Project and send them to me by tonight."
This was my husband.
My father's fate was still uncertain, yet all he cared about was my labor output.
"Cameron!" I stared into his eyes! "how much did Wendy's art exhibition cost?"
The knife and fork scraped across the plate with a sharp, grating sound.
He set down the cutlery and wiped his mouth gracefully. "That was a company brand PR activity, meant to establish an image of supporting young artists. The budget was approved by the marketing department. Why, are you auditing the accounts?"
"It was a million dollars," I said coldly. "Brand PR? Since when did the Lister Group start investing in abstract graffiti?"
Cameron's face darkened. "Nina, are you questioning me? Don't forget, you're the company's chief designer and the CEO's wife. Can't your perspective be a little broader? Don't keep staring at such small sums of money."
"Small sums?" I laughed, tears almost spilling out. "My dad was waiting for 10 thousand dollars to save his life. You said company funds were locked up, yet you turned around and gave a million dollars to your little lover for an art exhibition and you still say this is me being small-minded?"
"Nina, watch your mouth!" Cameron slammed the table. "Wendy is a talented newcomer. We need to cultivate her—"
"Talent?" I cut him off. "Drawing a few circles and irregular triangles counts as talent? Then what were all those design blueprints I worked on day and night? Waste paper?"
Cameron stood up and looked down at me from above, his eyes full of disappointment. "You’ve changed, Nina. You weren't this mercenary before. Is it because I've been too busy lately and didn't take the time to rein you in? That's enough. Take this card and go eat something nice to cool off. The limit is 100 dollars—don't max it out."
He pulled a card out of his wallet and tossed it onto the table as if giving alms.
The door slammed shut with a bang, and Cameron drove away.
I stood in the empty living room, staring at the shopping card with a spending limit of only 100 dollars.
I did not understand how things had come to this.
I had once been a renowned genius architectural designer in the industry, yet at some point I had ended up living like a parasitic vine that could only survive by clinging to him.
I was even subjected to his strict control when it came to spending the money I had earned through my own hard work.
I turned and walked into the study.
Cameron had been an extremely cautious person, and he had a safe at home where he kept the company's core secrets for the past few years.
He thought I didn’t know the password.
Because to him, I had been a foolish woman who only knew how to draw plans and understood nothing about numbers or corporate operations.
But he had forgotten that I was an architect.
My sensitivity to numbers had quickly allowed me to discover that the password was *#0826.
I had always thought the password would be our wedding anniversary, until I saw that Twitter post yesterday.
I saw the line. [Thank you, Cameron, for your indulgent love. The 1-million-dollar "Wendy Art Exhibition" was the best birthday gift I ever received!]
The symbols *# were Cameron's habit, and 0826 was Wendy's birthday.
I turned the dial, and the safe opened.
Inside lay a thick document, with the cover reading. Asset Transfer and Trust Establishment Plan.
The document was very thick and entirely in Spanish, but it posed no difficulty for me.
I flipped open the first page, and the blood in my body froze instantly.
This had been a meticulously designed trap.
Cameron had been transferring the core assets of the Lister Group—including those parcels of land and my design patents—into the name of an offshore company registered in the Cayman Islands.
And the beneficiary of that offshore company had been listed as Wendy.
What shocked me even more was another document titled. Risk Assumption Agreement for the Summit Project.
In the column for the project's legal representative, the signature was my name.
The land for the Summit Project had serious ownership disputes and might even have involved illegal land use.
Once the scandal broke, I, as the legal representative, would have faced at least ten years in prison.
And he would have taken the assets and his new lover and fled far away.
I clutched the documents in my hands, my knuckles turning white.
So that was it.
No wonder he had kept urging me to produce the drawings, and no wonder he had insisted that I be the person in charge of this project.
It wasn’t that he trusted me—he had planned to squeeze out my last bit of value and then send me to prison.
Buzz—
My phone vibrated with a WhatsApp message from Cameron.
[Are the drawings finished? Wendy said she wants to look at your designs and learn from a senior's thinking. I'll bring her home for dinner tonight—prepare a few dishes.]
He still wanted to see my designs?
He wanted to bring the assistant home for dinner?
And expected me to cook for the woman who had taken a million dollars?
He must have been dreaming.
I took a deep breath, backed up all the documents, uploaded them to an encrypted cloud drive, and then restored the safe to its original state.
In the afternoon, I went to the hospital.
My father had not woken up yet, with many tubes inserted into his body, a sight that made my heart ache.
I sat by the bed, holding his withered hand. "Dad, I'm sorry. I’ve been stupid and failed to see Cameron’s true colors. Don't worry. Your medical expenses, and everything I earned through my own hard work, I’ll make sure he pays me back double."
I went online and sold some of the luxury handbags I had bought, earning more than 10 thousand dollars in total.
