Chapter 3

Ever since Melanie crashed into my life, sleep had become a luxury.

My mind kept drifting back to how Austin and I first met.

During my senior year of college, I worked part-time as a scare actor at the most popular escape room in the city. I usually played the creepy, bloody ghost because those roles paid the highest.

One night, after spending two hours on heavy FX makeup and slipping into a blood-red dress, I got to work.

A couple entered the room. I jumped out from behind a trick mirror and chased them to keep them from solving the puzzle.

The girl was terrified. She literally sat on the floor, crying and screaming that she wanted to quit.

Since I had to finish my cue, I kept up the act.

Suddenly, her boyfriend lost his temper. He stepped forward and slapped me hard across the face, looking all heroic like he was defending his girl.

That was when Austin stepped in. He grabbed the guy, shoved him back, and snapped, "If you can't handle the game, don't play. What kind of coward hits a scare actor?"

After that incident, I added Austin on SnapChat, and we naturally became friends.

He was five years older than me. After working as a software engineer at a Silicon Valley tech giant, he grew tired of the corporate grind and wanted to start his own escape room business.

Since we talked about everything, we eventually fell in love.

He used his savings and took out a bank loan to open "The Honey Bunny."

To help him out, I had thought about going back to my wealthy parents to ask for money. But Austin told me that having me design the puzzles and concepts with him was more than enough.

Back when I was applying for college, my parents had secretly logged into my portal and changed my major to Business Administration. They claimed it was so I could take over the family's hotel business later.

I ended up taking a double major in Business and Design, but I never took a single dime of their money after that.

When I married Austin, I had to sneak into my parents' house just to grab my birth certificate and papers so we could get a quick marriage license at City Hall.

As these memories flashed before my eyes, I couldn't sleep.

I walked into the living room to get a glass of water and saw Austin's iPad resting on the coffee table. I tried entering the password Melanie had given me.

It unlocked instantly.

When I opened his messaging apps, I saw a chat pinned to the top. The profile picture was the exact same gray cat.

The contact name was saved as "Momo's Mom."

They didn't text constantly, but Austin updated her on every major event in his life.

While he was sweet-talking his wife in one room, he was keeping his romance alive in another. Who knew my husband was such a master of time management?

A cold wave of reality hit me, and my fists clenched tight.

Should I just confront him right now and accept that I threw my heart to a dog?

No. I needed to dig up all their dirty laundry first. I wanted both of them to pay.