Chapter 1
The sound of my phone crashing against the marble coffee table was so loud that I thought the screen had shattered.
I looked up from the sofa.
My wife, Nia, stood over me, shaking with anger.
"Five thousand dollars, Marcus? You transferred FIVE THOUSAND dollars without even asking me?"
Her voice echoed through our living room.
I stared at the phone, then at her face.
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't play stupid with me!"
She grabbed the phone again and shoved the banking notification toward my face.
"Five thousand dollars. Gone. Just like that. And you thought I wouldn't notice?"
I slowly put down the newspaper I had been reading.
"I transferred it to Jasmine."
Nia laughed.
It wasn't a happy laugh.
It was the kind of laugh that told me an argument had already started long before I knew about it.
"Of course you did. Your precious daughter."
I felt my shoulders tighten.
"Watch how you talk about my child."
"Your child?" she snapped. "Marcus, that girl is twenty-four years old! When is she going to stop expecting her daddy to pay for everything?"
I leaned forward.
"She didn't ask me to pay for everything."
"Then what was the money for?"
"Her graduate school tuition and the balance she needed to secure her apartment."
Nia threw both hands into the air.
"Unbelievable!"
I stood halfway from the sofa.
"Jasmine has worked two jobs while finishing school. She earned a scholarship. She asked me for help because her financial aid payment was delayed."
"And naturally, Daddy came running."
Something in her tone made my stomach turn.
I had heard Nia complain about Jasmine before.
But recently, the complaints had become more personal.
More cruel.
"She's my daughter," I said.
"And I'm your wife!"
"That doesn't mean I stop being her father."
Nia stepped closer, pointing directly at my chest.
"I'm tired of our money supporting your grown child!"
I stood completely upright.
"Our money?"
Her expression hardened.
"Yes, Marcus. Our money."
I looked around the expensive living room.
The cream-colored sofa.
The towering windows.
The marble floors.
The house I had purchased six years before meeting Nia.
"The mortgage comes out of my account," I said. "So do the property taxes, utilities, and insurance. I pay for the cars, too."
Nia's eyes narrowed.
"So because you make more money, my opinion means nothing?"
"That's not what I said."
"Then why didn't you ask me?"
"Because the money came from my personal savings."
She folded her arms.
"We're married. Everything should be discussed."
I almost agreed with her.
Then I remembered the alert I had received that morning.
An alert I had spent several hours trying to understand.
I picked up my phone.
"Since we're talking about honesty, there's something I need to ask you."
Nia rolled her eyes.
"What now?"
"Why did you freeze Jasmine's emergency card?"
For the first time since entering the room, she stopped talking.
Her eyes shifted toward the windows.
I watched her carefully.
"Nia?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
I opened the bank application.
"Her card was declined at the pharmacy yesterday. Then it was declined when she tried paying her apartment deposit."
"Maybe she spent too much."
"She hadn't used it in three months."
"Then call the bank."
"I did."
Nia's jaw tightened.
I turned my phone toward her.
"The bank said the restriction was requested through an authorized household profile."
She stared at the screen.
I continued.
"They sent me the confirmation."
Her face changed.
Just slightly.
But after seven years of marriage, I knew that look.
Fear.
"Nia, you canceled her access without telling me."
"I didn't cancel anything."
"The bank has your authorization."
She stepped backward.
"Marcus, you don't understand."
"Then explain it."
She rubbed her forehead.
"I was protecting our finances."
"From what?"
"From Jasmine taking advantage of you!"
I stared at my wife.
"She had an emergency card with a fifteen-hundred-dollar limit. I gave it to her when she started college."
"Exactly! Six years ago!"
"It was for emergencies."
"Well, she's not a child anymore."
I could feel my anger rising.
But I wasn't finished.
There was something worse.
Something I had discovered only fifteen minutes before Nia came home.
"And what about the message?"
Nia looked at me sharply.
"What message?"
"The one Jasmine sent to my phone yesterday."
"I don't touch your messages."
"Then why was it in my deleted folder?"
She blinked.
I watched her hands.
They were trembling.
"I don't know."
I held the phone closer.
"Jasmine called me this afternoon. She wanted to know why I hadn't answered her message."
Nia swallowed.
"I told her I never received one."
"Marcus—"
"She said she watched it get delivered."
Nia reached toward me.
"Give me the phone."
I moved it away.
"Why?"
"Because you're twisting everything!"
"Then tell me what she wrote."
Her mouth opened.
No words came out.
I took another step toward her.
"Jasmine said that message contained something I needed to know about you."
Nia's face drained of color.
"She misunderstood," she whispered.
"Misunderstood what?"
Suddenly, she lunged for my phone.
I stepped aside.
Her fingers brushed my wrist, but I pulled the device out of reach.
"Marcus, please!"
It was the first time she had said please all evening.
And somehow, that frightened me more than her screaming.
I stared at the unread message on my screen.
"Nia," I said quietly, "what did you do?"
She shook her head.
Tears gathered in her eyes.
"Whatever Jasmine told you, she's trying to ruin our marriage."
I looked down.
The message was still there.
Waiting.
My thumb hovered over it.
And when I looked up again, my wife was staring at that screen as though opening it would destroy everything.
"Do you want to tell me what it says," I asked, "before I read it myself?"
May you like
Nia covered her mouth.
And in that terrible silence, I realized the argument had never really been about five thousand dollars.
