Chapter 3
1098words
She collapsed backward like a sculpture with its support suddenly removed. I rushed to catch her. Her body felt paradoxically light as a feather yet heavy as lead, shaking violently, uncontrollably.
I half-carried her to the sofa. The moment she touched the cushions, she crumbled completely. She curled up against my chest, and the sobs she'd been suppressing finally broke through like a bursting dam. Not hysterical wailing, but something more heartbreaking—the whimpers of a wounded animal, as if her very bones ached.
My robe quickly soaked with her tears, the warm liquid seeping through to my skin like her sorrow transferring directly to me.
I said nothing, just held her tight, stroking her golden hair, offering a safe harbor in the storm.
I don't know how long passed before her sobs subsided into occasional sniffles. Ava shifted in my arms, her voice sandpaper-rough.
"Chloe..."
"I'm here, darling." I kissed her forehead.
She remained silent for a moment, gathering strength. The room held only the low hum of the refrigerator, a reminder that everything we'd just experienced wasn't merely a nightmare.
Finally, I asked the question that had been circling my mind all night, my voice barely a whisper: "How did you find out?"
Ava slowly sat up, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Her eyes were swollen red, but behind the tears lurked a disturbing clarity.
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she walked to the bar, poured two whiskeys with large ice spheres, and returned to place one in my hand.
The ice clinked against glass—a crisp overture to this belated trial.
"At first, it was just a small discrepancy," Ava took a sip, the burning liquid seeming to fortify her. "His supplementary credit card showed a fixed monthly charge to a company called 'Digital Canvas Creations'."
"Sounds legitimate enough," I agreed.
"Yes," Ava's lips twisted into something barely resembling a smile. "When I asked, he said it was for cloud storage and video rendering for that 'startup project' he kept mentioning. I actually felt relieved, thinking he'd finally gotten serious about building something."
Her fingers absently traced the cold glass, her gaze drifting toward the darkness beyond the window.
"I even offered to run the payments through my company for better tax deductions. He refused, saying he wanted to prove himself." She let out a short, bitter laugh. "Looking back, he wasn't wrong—he certainly did it 'his own way.'"
"Then what happened?" I pressed, my heart racing.
"Last Tuesday," Ava's voice grew colder, "he brought lunch to my studio and used my spare computer to check emails. He left in a hurry and forgot to log out of his cloud drive."
My breath caught.
"That afternoon, I needed an old contract and found the computer still logged into his account. I was about to log out—I respect privacy." She took another gulp. "But just as I was about to click 'log out,' a folder name caught my eye."
She stopped, as if the name itself carried dark power.
"What was it called?" My voice tightened.
Ava turned to me, her eyes blazing with hatred and humiliation: "Monetization Projects."
The phrase hit me like a hammer. This wasn't entrepreneur terminology—it sounded like pimp slang.
"I thought," Ava continued, speaking faster, "maybe I was overthinking. Maybe it was just some buzzword from a business course. I told myself, don't click it, don't click it—it's Pandora's box."
But she clicked anyway.
"I couldn't lie to myself, Chloe. I already knew. I clicked the folder."
Her body trembled slightly—not from sadness, but rage.
"No business plan inside. No market analysis. Nothing like that," Ava's voice echoed from some hellish depth. "Just video files, named by dates and scenes. '22.07.15_Poolside Fun', '22.08.02_Gym Locker Room Shenanigans', '22.09.10_Kitchen Counter Wrestling'..."
I gasped, nearly dropping my glass. The file names were suggestive yet explicit, dripping with vulgar innuendo.
"I clicked the most recent video in the offline cache. Those few seconds of loading felt like centuries."
"And then... you saw it?" I managed.
"I saw Liam," Ava's gaze emptied, as if reliving the moment her world shattered, "and Jake. In our swimming pool, doing... something so ridiculous and filthy I can't even describe it. The camera shook badly, like casual phone footage, and the background music was my favorite indie song."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, the emptiness had been replaced by burning rage.
"That's when I finally understood, Chloe. It wasn't just the cheating, or that he was gay—none of that matters. What I couldn't bear was that he was using MY credit card to fund these disgusting videos, then selling them to perverts online and calling it a 'monetization project'!"
Her voice rose, each word squeezed through clenched teeth: "This is a fucking triple homicide against my emotions, my finances, and my intelligence! What did he take me for? A stupid ATM? An investor in his porn business?!"
The air seemed to freeze, her angry breathing the only sound.
Sadness had vanished, replaced by ice-cold fury.
Ava stood abruptly, downed her remaining whiskey, and slammed the empty glass on the table.
She strode to the massive whiteboard across the room, still covered with last quarter's plans—brand collaborations and content ideas.
Her gaze fixed on the board like a predator on prey—this wasn't just a planning tool anymore, but a battlefield.
"He used my money to insult my character. He turned my career into a joke for his dirty dealings." Her voice regained that terrifying calm, each word like a stone ready to be hurled.
"Chloe, this isn't a breakup."
She grabbed a black marker, uncapping it with swift precision.
"This is war."
She wrote two words in the center of the board in bold, decisive strokes:
"PROJECT: UNLOCKED"
After writing, she tossed the marker aside, grabbed her phone, and with lightning speed opened Instagram. She selected our toasting photo from earlier and posted it as a Story—no filters, no text.
She turned her phone screen toward me. In the dim light, our clinking whiskey glasses looked like a silent pact.
Almost instantly after posting, her phone lit up.
A text from Liam appeared, the preview filled with frantic threats.
"Ava you crazy bitch! Say one word and see what happens! I will fucking ruin you!"
Ava looked at the message, the corner of her mouth curling into an icy, cruel smile.
She looked down at her phone like it was a detonator to a world-destroying bomb.
