I Will Make My Fake Husband Pay Everything

I shoved my weight against the heavy glass doors of the Manhattan high-rise.

The law office of J. Vance occupied the entire top floor. No reception desk greeted me. No waiting area. Just a sprawling expanse of polished concrete leading to a single, glass-walled office at the far end.

I marched straight toward it.

A man stood behind a massive slab of black marble. Julian Vance. His charcoal suit draped flawlessly over his broad frame, projecting an intimidating, untouchable authority.

He didn't look up from his phone when I entered.

"You sent the email," I said.

Julian tossed the phone aside. He picked up a thick manila folder and slammed it onto the center of the desk. The sound cracked like a gunshot in the quiet room.

"Page four," he commanded.

I kept my distance. "I want answers first. You mentioned bigamy."

"I mentioned a federal crime," Julian corrected. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and took a seat. "You married Marcus Stone three years ago in New York."

"Yes."

"Arthur Pendelton married Eleanor Vance five years ago in Las Vegas. Page four, Clara."

A cold realization settled over me. The name hit me like a physical blow. Vance.

"Eleanor is your sister," I stated.

"My little sister." His dark eyes locked onto mine, devoid of any warmth. "She thinks her husband travels for his corporate consulting job. She thinks he spends three weeks a month on the East Coast building their future."

"He lives with me. He sleeps in my bed."

"He sleeps in a hospital bed right now," Julian said. "Minus a spleen."

"You've been tracking him."

"I track everything that concerns my family." Julian tapped a silver fountain pen against the marble surface. "Arthur made a mistake yesterday. He transferred eighty-two thousand dollars into Apex Holdings."

"That's my money," I snapped. "We saved that for a house."

"You saved it," Julian corrected. "He siphoned it. And since Apex Holdings is a shell company registered in Nevada, I stepped in."

"Give it back."

"I can't."

"You're a lawyer. Wire it back to my account."

"I am the legal receiver for Apex Holdings," Julian said. His voice remained maddeningly flat. "I froze the corporate accounts at eight o'clock this morning. But recovering the cash isn't why I brought you here."

He slid the manila folder an inch closer to my side of the desk.

I finally stepped forward and flipped the heavy cover open. The first three pages contained bank statements, routing numbers, and shell company registrations.

"Look at the fourth page," he ordered.

I turned the sheet. A photograph stared back at me.

Marcus. My Marcus. He wore the gray cashmere sweater I bought him for Christmas two years ago. He stood in a sunlit park, his arm wrapped around a slender blonde woman. Eleanor.

Sitting on Marcus's shoulders was a little boy.

The child had Marcus's dark hair. His crooked smile.

"He has a son," I whispered. The words scraped against my dry throat.

"Leo turned four last month," Julian said.

Four.

The titanium clips on his vas deferens. The 2023 surgery date. He fathered a child with Eleanor, decided he was done expanding his family, and got sterilized. Then he married me.

He watched me track my basal body temperature for three years. He held my hand in the fertility clinic.

A strange, sharp noise erupted from my chest.

I laughed.

It wasn't a sound of joy. It was a jagged, broken noise that echoed off the glass walls. I covered my mouth, but the laughter kept spilling out, harsh and unhinged.

Julian watched my breakdown without blinking. "Are you finished?"

I dropped my hand. My jaw ached. "He watched me cry over negative pregnancy tests. He knew."

"Arthur is a parasite," Julian said. "He drains resources, emotional and financial, and moves on. But the eighty grand he stole from you is pocket change."

"What do you mean?"

Julian uncapped his silver fountain pen. He pulled a fresh document from his top drawer and pushed it across the marble. The bold heading read: *Asset Transfer and Joint Retaliation Agreement.*

"My private investigators dug into his offshore activity," Julian explained. "Arthur has nearly four million dollars hidden in decentralized crypto wallets. He plans to liquidate those assets, abandon both of his lives here, and vanish."

"Four million." I stared at the crisp white paper.

"I want that money," Julian said. "I want it for my sister. I want it for my nephew. And I want Arthur rotting in a federal penitentiary."

"Then give the police this file."

"The crypto is untraceable without the physical hardware wallet. A USB drive. He keeps it hidden." Julian pointed the pen at me. "I need you to find it."

My hands curled into tight fists at my sides. My knuckles turned stark white against my pale skin.

"You want me to play spy for you."

"I want you to be my inside mole."

"I am not your pawn, Mr. Vance."

"You are the only person who can walk into that ICU room without raising suspicion," Julian countered. "He trusts you. You are the naive, desperate wife who stayed home and knitted baby booties."

The insult stung, hot and precise.

I glared at him. "I'm pregnant."

Julian's expression didn't shift. Not a single muscle in his face twitched. "Then you have even more reason to secure your financial future. Sign the agreement."

"What do I get out of this?"

"Half."

"Half of the four million?"

"Yes. Two million for you. Two million for Eleanor."

"And Marcus?" I asked.

"Arthur," Julian corrected sharply. "Marcus Stone is a fiction."

"What happens to him?"

I looked down at the photograph again. The happy family. The smiling father. The man who let me hate my own body for three years while he secretly raised a son in another state.

The humiliation of being used by Julian warred with the violent, burning need for revenge.

The fire won.

I reached for the silver pen. The metal felt ice-cold against my fingertips.

Julian stood up. He bypassed the massive desk, his tall frame closing the distance between us. He stopped directly behind my chair. The sheer size of him cast a dark shadow over the documents.

He reached over my shoulder. His long, steady fingers pressed down on the bottom corner of the contract, holding the signature line flat against the marble.

"Sign it," Julian murmured, his voice dropping to a lethal, quiet pitch. "And tomorrow I'll make sure he ceases to exist in this world."