chapter 2

"I'll make sure to give you the wedding you deserve."

Those sweet words still seemed to echo in my ears, making me wonder if there had been some sort of misunderstanding.

But the cold, hard number in my bank account quickly brought me back to reality.

Half a million dollars!

Zayden was just a low-level employee. Where did he get all that money?

I sneaked back to the apartment just as the first light of dawn was breaking.

After taking a deep breath, I quietly opened the bedroom door and found Zayden still fast asleep in bed.

As soon as I lay down next to him, he instinctively wrapped his arms around me from behind, burying his nose in my hair.

He mumbled sleepily, "Babe, why are you awake so early?"

I stared at him in a daze.

Was this really the same man who was my client, S, on the dark web just hours ago?

We'd been together for five years, and Zayden had never once raised his voice at me. He never even asked me to lift a finger around the house.

"Babe, just look pretty. If you're tired, I'll feel bad."

The neighbors always said I'd found myself a great guy.

And yeah, from the moment I met him until yesterday, I'd always believed that leaving the business to live a normal life for him was the best decision I ever made.

It was also why I decided to come out of retirement and take this job, so he wouldn't have to struggle so much.

I'd already planned to say I won the lottery and hand over the money to him.

But what happened a few hours ago kept replaying in my mind like a slideshow.

I counted the days. It was less than a week until his promotion.

It matched the deadline S gave me on the dark web.

Was it all just a coincidence, or had Zayden been pretending this whole time?

My head was about to explode.

"Babe, what are you thinking? You look so pale."

Zayden rubbed his eyes, his tone full of concern.

"Did my snoring keep you up last night?"

I instinctively shifted a bit, putting some distance between us.

"No, it's probably just that I stayed up too late watching that show. Didn't get much sleep."

Thankfully, Zayden didn't seem to notice anything odd. He just stretched lazily.

"Matilda, I made an appointment for your health check-up. I gave Dr. Lane your number, so don't forget to go."

"Babe, can I go tomorrow? I'd really like to sleep a bit longer."

"No way!!!" Zayden shot up from the bed.

His sudden change in mood left me frozen in place.

"Honey… I wasn't snapping at you," he said, scratching his head as he tried to explain.

"I... I just care about your health so much, that's why I'm so eager. You're not mad at me, are you?"

Since the moment I met Zayden, he'd always spoken to me gently, no matter what the situation.