Every Time He Strays, My Fortune Grows

Start Reading

I sat at the long mahogany dining table, the rhythmic thud of a headboard and muffled moans drifting down from the second floor. It was my husband, Garrett, breaking in his eighteenth secretary.

Today was our fourth wedding anniversary. It was also the fourth year since the True Love System bound itself to us.

Four years ago, the moment we signed our marriage papers, the System descended. Every act of genuine love between us was rewarded. That was, until the day I found out I was pregnant. The System handed out its ultimate gift, a technological breakthrough that skyrocketed Garrett into the ranks of the world's most elite billionaires overnight.

But even a man certified by a magical entity could have a change of heart.

Garrett took the seat next to me, his collar slightly wrinkled, a faint smattering of red marks on his neck. He ladled a bowl of steaming chicken soup and set it before me.

"Sorry for the wait, honey. I specifically asked the housekeeper to simmer this for you today."

I nodded, my face an unreadable mask, and picked up the silver spoon.

The next second, a long forgotten, cold mechanical voice echoed in my mind.

[Ding. Congratulations to the Host. The Severance Protocol has been triggered.]

I froze, the spoon hovering in midair. I glanced at Garrett. He was casually checking his phone, completely oblivious. It was certain. He had not heard the prompt.

Footsteps padded down the grand staircase. The eighteenth secretary was a familiar face. Garrett immediately stood up, pulling out a chair for her with practiced, intimate grace.

"Sylvia, this is Laura. She was the recipient of our university's scholarship program last year." His voice actually carried a hint of pleasant surprise. "When she brought it up during the interview, I couldn't help but marvel at how small the world is."

"Garrett," I interrupted his order for another place setting, my fingernails digging into my palms. "You promised. They are never allowed at our dining table."

The very first reward we ever got from the System was a lavish anniversary dinner.

Garrett waved his hand dismissively. "Laura is different. I plan to mentor her personally."

"Mentor her how? Between the sheets?"

The young girl's face drained of color. She shrank back, her trembling fingers gripping the hem of Garrett's expensive blazer.

"There is no need to be so vulgar," Garrett said, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. "I initiated it. She is young. You cannot blame her."

He patted her arm to soothe her.

Suddenly, Laura looked up. Her voice was thin, but her words were crystal clear.

"Sylvia, I am truly grateful for the financial aid you provided me back in college. But Garrett and I are truly in love. Doesn't it exhaust you, clinging to a title when the heart is gone?"

She had changed. The timid college girl I met a year ago had grown bold, her eyes gleaming with naked ambition.

Garrett's face darkened instantly. "Laura, know your place. She will always be my wife." But his tone softened just as quickly as he looked down at her. "That doesn't stop us from being in love. Just be a good girl and do as you are told."

A dry, bitter laugh escaped my throat. "Laura, he said the exact same lines to the seventeen women before you. Tell me, which number of true love do you think you are?"

The pregnancy reward the System gave us back then was a technological blueprint decades ahead of its time, along with massive startup capital.

When I was eight months pregnant, Garrett was overseas attending his company's IPO gala. His aunt and uncle suddenly barged into our home, demanding fifty million dollars in alimony. They claimed that without them taking in an orphaned Garrett years ago, he would be nothing.

During the heated argument, his cousin shoved me down the stairs. The whole family blocked the front door, demanding the money before they would call an ambulance.

As a pool of crimson soaked the hardwood floor, I dialed Garrett's number over and over. I got nothing but endless voicemail.

Three hours later, the celebratory fireworks of his IPO lit up the foreign sky. And the fully formed baby boy inside me stopped breathing forever.

When Garrett finally rushed back to the country, he handled his relatives, but began avoiding me. While I was confined to my bed in mourning, I smelled a foreign, sweet perfume on his dress shirt for the first time. I found a glaring, chestnut blonde strand of hair on his collar.

I smashed every vase and mirror in the room. He simply stood amidst the shattered glass, his voice devoid of emotion.

"It was just a one night stand. Don't work yourself up. You will always be my wife."

I prayed countless times for the True Love System to appear again, to strip away everything it had given us. If we went back to being poor but in love, maybe Garrett would come back to me.

But nothing happened. The mechanical voice I once viewed as a divine miracle remained dead.

From then on, whoever caught his eye became his new personal assistant. When he got bored, he swapped them out. The entire corporate empire knew, but no one dared breathe a word.

I drafted divorce papers. He tore them to shreds right in front of my face. The very next day, armed guards patrolled the estate, and housekeepers were stationed in my room, impossible to shake off.

Propelled by the System, he sat comfortably at the absolute pinnacle of the business world. There was nothing he could not control.

Garrett put down his fork and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin.

"Stop throwing a tantrum. There is an auction next month featuring that vintage emerald set you have been eyeing. Consider it... compensation for number eighteen."

I ate my cold rice in silence. Those so called gifts were already gathering dust in the storage room. They made my skin crawl.

He stood up, taking Laura's hand to leave. He paused at the door, as if suddenly remembering something.

"I am taking Laura to see the Northern Lights next week. The kid has been begging me for ages. Be good and stay home. I will bring you a souvenir."

Next week was the anniversary of my mother's death.

"Next Wednesday is my mother's memorial. You..."

"What does a memorial matter?" he cut me off, irritation lacing his voice. "We go every single year. Is her ghost going to haunt me if I miss one?"

He pulled Laura closer, his tone turning frigid. "Mope all you want on your own, just don't ruin our mood."

During our senior year of high school, my mother fell terminally ill. He knelt by her hospital bed, swearing on his life that he would cherish me forever. When she passed, he drained his entire savings from six years of part time jobs to give her a proper funeral.

Every year since, he would kneel at her gravestone, recounting how well he was taking care of me, telling her to rest in peace.

Now, he could not remember our anniversary. He did not care about my mother's memorial. But he remembered his little secretary wanted to see the Northern Lights.

The heavy oak doors slammed shut.

At that exact moment, the icy mechanical voice rang out again.

[Ding. Congratulations to the Host. You have received 99,999,999 dollars in highest denomination currency.]

[The funds have been transferred to your encrypted offshore account. The Severance Protocol will be with you every step of the way.]

The System had descended once more, pulling me from the wreckage.

After sweeping the fallen autumn leaves from my mother's grave, I arranged the fresh white chrysanthemums. My fingertips brushed against the carved letters of her name. That stone was once the only warmth in my isolated world.

I never knew my father or any other relatives. It was just me and her. That was, until I met Garrett in high school. He was like a wild, untamed fire, forcefully illuminating the bitter, barren landscape of my youth.

We used to huddle together in a freezing rental apartment during winter nights, promising to be each other's irreplaceable source of warmth.

But Mom, he changed.

That fire now burned me until I bled.

"Ma'am, it is a call from Mr. Garrett." The bodyguard's stiff voice pulled me back to reality.

I took the phone. On the other end, Garrett's voice sounded unusually panicked.

"Sylvia, the puppy Laura adopted is doing really badly. You need to come take a look."

A wave of pure absurdity pierced my heart like a needle.

Years ago, when he rushed back and saw me hollowed out, having just lost our child, he had not sounded this frantic. He was only anxious about whether the System would revoke his wealth.

I should have known. I should have realized it long ago.

"Go to hell," I heard my own dry, raspy voice say.

Minutes later, I was essentially escorted by force into the black SUV.

The car pulled up to the tiny starter home we had rented right after college. Back then, after receiving a massive cash reward from the System, we bought this place full of memories. We renovated it together, turning it into our dream nest.

I pushed the door open. The interior was violently different from my memory, like a beautiful dream heavily vandalized.

The spot on the mantelpiece that once held our framed couple photos was replaced by Laura's graduation portrait. The velvet sofa I had spent weeks picking out was draped with a sickeningly sweet pink blanket. The air was suffocating, thick with a cheap, sugary perfume that completely eradicated the clean scent of sunlight and laundry detergent that used to live here.

Laura initiated a video call from Garrett's phone.

"Sylvia, how is Peanut doing?"

She lowered her eyes, putting on a masterful display of distress. "When Garrett and I found him last week, he was so weak. He refuses to eat. Could you please take him back to the main estate and nurse him?"

I walked further in. The room we had painstakingly designated as the nursery had been gutted and turned into a dog's playroom.

In the corner, a frail puppy curled up in a designer dog bed. Tied around its neck was a glaring red string.

Dangling from the red string was a tiny, blessed gold locket.

It was the very same locket Garrett had walked miles up a treacherous mountain path to pray for, back when I was pregnant. We used to press our hands to my barely showing stomach, calling the baby Noah, praying for him to have a lifetime of peace and safety.

"Where did you get that red string?" My voice trembled, freezing the air in the room.

My heart hammered heavily against my ribs, every beat radiating a dull, sickening ache.

"You mean the one on Peanut's neck?" Laura blinked innocently through the screen. "Garrett put it on him. He said it brings good luck and protection."

He forgot.

He did not just forget the locket. He forgot Noah.

He forgot how we knelt side by side on the temple floor, heads bowed in absolute devotion. He forgot the tears and laughter embedded in the name Noah. He forgot how awkwardly, yet blissfully, we debated the paint colors for the nursery.

Even the very last memento of my dead child had been casually tossed to his mistress's pet.

"I know this used to be your house, Sylvia." Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, dripping with hidden triumph. "All the junk you two used to own is locked in the master bedroom. We even did it on that old bed of yours..."

"But just the once. Garrett said it felt a bit gross being in there."

I walked over and pushed open the master bedroom door.

Every single photo album, every souvenir, every piece of our shared history was piled haphazardly in the corner. Like trash waiting for the dumpster.

I dragged them all out into the center of the backyard. Box after box, memory after memory, along with that red string and the tiny gold locket.

My lighter sparked, spitting out a blue flame.

The fire eagerly licked at the edges of our polaroids, consuming our awkward teenage smiles, swallowing the gold locket into the inferno.

It was time to end this.

Along with the unborn child, and all the years of pathetic, self deceiving fantasies.

As the flames roared higher, Garrett's furious roar erupted from the phone's speaker.

"Sylvia! What the hell are you doing? Are you insane? Put it out!"

His voice cracked, shrill and laced with absolute terror.

"How could you... how could you burn it all!"

I stared into the dancing, crackling flames, feeling like a spectator watching a play that had nothing to do with me.

"It is trash nobody wants. Better to burn it clean."

"Laura!"

He immediately turned his crosshairs on her, his voice warped with panic.

"What the hell did you say to her?!"

"I... I didn't! She just asked about the red string... and about me moving in..."

The bonfire crackled and popped in front of me, perfectly masking Garrett's out of control screaming and Laura's pathetic sobbing.

I stood right beside the blistering heat, yet a terrifying, ice cold silence soaked through my bones.

The space where my heart used to be had been hollowed out long ago, scooped away by his endless betrayals. Now, even the leftover ashes were being swept away by this fire.

[Ding. Congratulations to the Host. You have received a fleet of five legally registered top tier luxury vehicles across the continent.]

I was not alone. I had the System.

With every ounce of shattered hope and every act of rebellion, I received massive rewards tied to an overseas haven. From unlimited funds to supercars, the System was meticulously paving a flawless escape route for me.

...

When the two of them walked through the villa doors later that evening, looking utterly drained, my mind was composed of nothing but icy calculations.

"Sylvia, I picked this out for you." Laura had morphed back into her timid persona, keeping her eyes glued to the floor. "I misspoke earlier. I made you angry enough to burn your own things."

Garrett stepped forward, reaching out to embrace me. I sidestepped, leaving his arms hanging awkwardly in the air.

"Noah is... gone. You can't drown in the past forever," Garrett said softly. "If that locket could bring some peace to the puppy, isn't it worth it?"

"Worth it?" I raised my hand and slapped him across the face with everything I had.

"You do not get to say Noah's name. It makes me sick coming from your mouth."

[Ding. You have received a sprawling vineyard estate in Tuscany.]

Garrett rubbed his cheek. A terrifying smile stretched across his face, followed by words even more ruthless than his betrayal.

"Fine. The playground and nursery you designed for Noah in the backyard? Tear them down. Staring at dead memories is bad for your health. Laura studied design in college. Let her use the space for practice."

Seeing the corner of Laura's mouth twitch upwards behind him, an idea flashed in my mind.

I snatched a sharp paring knife from the fruit bowl and pressed the steel firmly against my own collarbone, forcing tears to well up in my eyes.

"You want to erase the very last trace of Noah to make room for your new baby? Are you trying to make room for a new Mrs. Garrett, too?"

I saw the sudden, hungry spark in Laura's eyes. She understood exactly what I was doing.

The final jackpot, my ultimate ticket out of this hellhole, relied on one thing: a child.

"Tear it down," I pressed the blade harder, "and I will bleed out right here!"

"Sylvia! Don't do anything stupid!" Garrett panicked, lunging forward to wrestle the knife away, wrapping his arms tightly around my trembling body. "We won't touch it! We won't! You are the only woman who will ever bear my children!"

[Ding. You have received full estate resources, including a historical castle, a full butler and maid staff, and private chauffeurs.]

"I'm sending you on a vacation to clear your head. Too much has happened," he murmured, cupping my face, his eyes swimming in a sickening mix of terror and fake devotion. "Go overseas. Go to Europe... see the places we talked about when you were carrying Noah."

The very next day, I boarded a first class flight across the Atlantic.

For half a month, under the guise of grieving, I inspected the vineyard estate the System had gifted me. It was a breathtaking property bathed in Mediterranean sunlight, overflowing with blooming roses. It was perfect.

In the past, every single reward from the True Love System went straight to Garrett.

Cash, real estate, cars, they all bore his name. I used to complain, asking why a system based on our love only rewarded him.

It turned out, my gifts were just severely delayed.

When I finally returned to the city, Laura opened the front door.

Just as I predicted, the backyard was unrecognizable. The sandbox and jungle gym I sketched out for Noah were gone, replaced by a tacky infinity pool and an outdoor bar.

Laura wore a secretive, arrogant smirk.

"See that, Sylvia? The memories you threatened to die for? I wiped them out with a few whispers." She stepped closer. "Once I get pregnant, you are going to hand over the title of Mrs. Garrett quietly."

Hearing heavy footsteps approaching from the hallway behind her, I didn't hesitate. I raised my hand and struck her hard across the cheek.

The girl stumbled back with a gasp, collapsing onto the marble floor.

"Sylvia! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Garrett rushed over, shielding her on the floor, roaring at me. "I authorized the demolition! If you are pissed, take it out on me!"

I scoffed coldly, turning on my heel and walking upstairs.

[Ding. You have received an elite architectural design studio overseas, complete with a full executive team.]

"You are staying in this house! You are not going anywhere!" he screamed from the bottom of the stairs.

Everything I needed was almost in place.

My movements were completely restricted to the villa. I spent my days researching the design studio the System had given me. Their portfolio aligned perfectly with my own creative vision.

When Garrett walked into the bedroom and saw the architectural drafts spread across my desk, a deep frown etched into his face.

"Are you short on cash? Why are you playing around with blueprints again?"

I casually covered the name of my new overseas studio with a notebook, not bothering to look up. "You grounded me. I needed a hobby."

"You are coming with me to the charity gala tomorrow." He slammed the door shut on his way out.

On the surface, I was still the trophy wife required for his public theater.

But when the chauffeur opened my car door the next evening, I saw Laura standing there, draped in an evening gown that rivaled my own.

She instinctively reached to link her arm through Garrett's, but he hissed in a low voice, "In public, you are just my assistant!"

Yet, his tone immediately softened back into a caress. "Be a good girl. I will buy you whatever you want tonight."

Laura's face fell into a pout, and she trailed behind us obediently.

I observed the entire charade with dead eyes, like a theater critic watching a terrible play.

Given Garrett's current billionaire status, our seats were dead center in the front row. Laura and I flanked him on either side.

When the vintage emerald set he had promised me was rolled onto the stage, Laura leaned in, tugging gently on his sleeve.

"Garrett, that would look so cute on Peanut."

Garrett turned, offering her a disgustingly tender smile, and nodded.

He forgot again.

Half the socialites in this room knew I had been coveting that exact emerald set for years.

When the white gloved usher brought the velvet box over, he bypassed me completely, handing it directly to Laura.

A ripple of thinly veiled gasps and murmurs spread through the surrounding elite crowd.

Since he had decided to strip away my last shred of dignity in public, I was done playing along.

I stood up, violently flipping the low glass table in front of us.

The deafening crash of shattered crystal and porcelain echoed through the dead silent ballroom.

Without a single glance backward, I walked through the shocked crowd, heading straight for the terrace.

[Ding. You have received a forged, legally ironclad identity in your new country.]

The gala was being held at a historic mansion perched on the cliffs of the Riviera.

I walked toward the stone balustrade, letting the salty sea breeze whip through my hair.

A few moments later, the clack of heels announced Laura's arrival.

"Sylvia, why make a scene and humiliate Garrett like that?"

"You ruined the mood for the entire room. Garrett had to cover the entire night's auction tabs just to save face."

"Being this hysterical is only going to make him hate you more."

She closed the distance between us, pulling a folded piece of paper from her clutch. Her ambition was fully bared now.

"Besides, I am carrying his child. Your days sitting on that throne are over."

I took the medical report from her hands. I scanned the lines. It was a confirmed positive pregnancy test.

[Ding. Please prepare yourself, Host.]

The final reward was about to drop.

In the distance, Garrett burst through the terrace doors, his eyes wildly searching the darkness.

The second his gaze locked onto me, I gave him the brightest, most radiant smile I could muster.

Then, clutching that pregnancy report to my chest, I leaned backward and let gravity pull me off the cliff.

The wind screamed in my ears as I plummeted.

The very last thing I saw was Garrett's face warping into a mask of pure, unadulterated horror. I saw him sprint toward the edge, diving forward, his hands grasping at empty air.

He watched me vanish.

Not fall into the crashing waves, but literally vanish. Like a digital image being deleted, I faded out of existence inch by inch right before his eyes.

He even saw the lingering, victorious curve of my smile before I dissolved completely.

But all anyone else heard was Laura's piercing shriek. "Help! Call the Coast Guard! She fell into the ocean!"

The security footage showed a clear, uninterrupted fall straight into the raging black water, followed by a massive splash.

Everyone told him it was a hallucination. A trick of the mind brought on by extreme trauma.