Chapter 1: Eleven Years of Betrayal

Albert's phone lit up just as Liana was closing the last lunch box.

The kitchen of the Phua family home in BSD City had gone quiet. The clock was creeping toward midnight, but the scent of ginger chicken and garlic still hung in the air. On the dining table, three packed meals sat in a neat row. One for Albert. One for Jason, who sometimes came home without warning. The last she had prepared out of sheer habit, as though there were still a family waiting for her touch.

Liana was about to wash her hands when the phone screen at the edge of the table flared again.

Albert never left his phone unattended. He took it with him even into the bathroom. Tonight, exhaustion must have won. He had come home from campus, complained of a headache, and fallen asleep with his breathing heavy and labored.

Liana had no intention of looking.

She only wanted to turn the screen off to save the battery.

But one line in the notification stopped her fingertips mid-air.

Honey, Jayden asked when Dad is sleeping over again.

Her body went cold.

The small pot she was still holding nearly slipped from her grip. She set it down gently in the sink, but metal against ceramic still rang too loud in the silent kitchen.

Honey.

Dad.

Jayden.

Those three words could not exist on their own. Not on her husband's phone. Not after thirty years of a marriage she had tended like old cloth, patching it over and over so the tears would never show.

Liana stared at the master bedroom door. No sound from inside. Only the hum of the air conditioner and the ticking of the wall clock.

Her hands trembled as she picked up the phone.

She knew Albert's passcode. Not because she made a habit of checking -- Albert often asked her to reply to messages from junior lecturers or look up student numbers while he was driving. That night, the screen demanded a fingerprint.

Liana stood motionless for several seconds, holding her breath. Then she carried the phone into the bedroom.

Albert lay on his side, one hand draped limply over the blanket. His face was calm -- too calm for a man who had been harboring a storm inside his own house.

Liana lifted his thumb, slowly.

Click.

The screen unlocked.

Her heart hammered so hard she was afraid Albert would wake from the sound alone.

The contact name in WhatsApp was not Yuni Yap. Not any woman's name. Albert had saved it as Campus Documents.

But the profile photo showed a young woman with shoulder-length hair, smiling in front of an apartment mirror. Behind her stood a boy in an elementary school uniform.

Liana opened the conversation.

She did not need to scroll far to understand everything.

There were dinner photos. Flirtatious messages Albert had answered with words he had not spoken to his wife in years. Monthly transfers. School fee receipts. A photo of a birthday cake with a candle shaped like the number ten.

Jayden turns ten today. You have to come, Albert.

Eleven years, Liana thought.

Her fingers moved on their own, scrolling upward, far past months and years. The photos changed, the dates shifted, but the lies never broke. One message after another surfaced like needles driven slowly into her skin.

I miss you.

When can you stay with me?

Liana doesn't suspect anything, does she?

Albert had replied: She's too busy with the house. She'll never find out.

The room tilted.

Liana leaned against the wardrobe, the phone still in her hand. Her throat had gone dry. All this time, she had blamed age for the way Albert had changed. She had told herself his coldness was the toll of work, academic ambition, the grind of running a university department.

The truth was simpler. She was just the woman left at home to keep up appearances.

Thirty years she had risen before everyone else. Thirty years she had cooked meals, washed clothes, managed Kim Hwa's medications, deferred her own wants, swallowed every barb from the Phua family -- all because she believed a marriage was something you fought to preserve.

The first five years, she had learned to be a good wife.

The next ten, she had learned to be a daughter-in-law who never complained.

The last twenty, she had learned to live with a hole in her chest after Dede vanished -- her own son, the child she still searched for in her prayers.

And for eleven of all those years, Albert had kept another home. Another woman. Another child.

Liana opened the conversation's photo gallery. Albert embracing Jayden in front of a small Christmas tree. Yuni leaning her head against Albert's shoulder inside an apartment. A short video of a boy blowing out candles, shouting, "Dad, look over here!"

Liana covered her mouth.

Tears rose, but she refused to let them fall. Not now. Not in front of the sleeping face of the man who had betrayed her for this long.

She took her own phone from the nightstand and photographed the screen, one capture at a time. Conversations. Account numbers. Transfer receipts. Photos. The name of the apartment that appeared again and again in shared locations.

Golden Crown Apartments.

The amounts transferred were not small. They were larger than the monthly household budget Albert had always scrutinized in that cold voice of his.

Liana remembered how, just last week, Albert had reprimanded her for buying extra vitamins for his mother.

"Don't be wasteful. Money doesn't grow on trees."

She had said nothing. She had even felt guilty.

Now that guilt transformed into something hot and sharp.

"What are you doing?"

Albert's voice made Liana turn.

He was already awake. His eyes narrowed, then went wide when he saw the phone in her hand.

For the first time in years, Liana saw fear on her husband's face.

Only for a moment.

Then his expression hardened.

"Give me back my phone."

Liana did not move. "Eleven years?"

Albert swung his legs off the bed. "I said, give it back."

"Eleven years, Albert?" Liana's voice was quiet, but every word left her mouth with precision. "That boy is ten years old. Which means you were with her while I was still up every night taking care of your mother."

Albert's jaw clenched. "You went through my phone?"

Liana almost laughed. Not because anything was funny, but because the question was beneath contempt.

"That's what worries you?"

"You have no right to touch my personal property."

"And you had the right to keep another family?"

Albert scrubbed a hand down his face. He paced beside the bed like a lecturer who had lost his notes in front of the class. "You don't understand the situation."

"Then explain."

Albert stopped. "Yuni doesn't make demands."

The name was finally out in the open.

Yuni.

The woman in the photo had a name. The woman who had been receiving his money, his time, his attention, his body.

"She doesn't make demands?" Liana held his gaze. "What have I ever demanded, Albert? Did I ask for a mansion? Did I ask for a new car? I dropped out of college because your mother said family came first."

"Don't bring my mother into this."

"Why not? You're allowed to bring another woman into our lives, but I can't mention your mother -- the woman I took care of for ten years?"

Albert pointed at her face. "Lower your voice."

"There's no one left for you to fool tonight."

"Liana!"

That bark used to be enough to silence her. She would have bowed her head, apologized without knowing what she had done wrong. She used to be afraid this house would crack if she answered too loudly.

Tonight, the cracks ran all the way down to the bone.

Liana set Albert's phone on the vanity table. She untied the apron still hanging from her body, folded it once, and placed it on the chair. The movements were deliberate, almost too composed, but inside her chest something had already severed.

"I want a divorce."

Albert froze.

For several seconds he only stared at her, as if the woman in front of him had turned into a stranger.

Then he let out a short laugh. "Divorce?"

"Yes."

"You're speaking out of emotion."

"I'm speaking because I've finally woken up."

Albert stepped closer. The smell of his hair oil and the remnants of his campus cologne hit Liana's nose. That scent used to feel familiar. Now it felt like something foreign in her own home.

"Listen carefully," Albert said, his voice dropping low, laced with pressure. "At fifty, what exactly do you think you'll become after a divorce?"

Liana met his eyes without blinking.

"You don't have a job. You don't have an income. You've spent thirty years doing nothing but keeping house. You think the world out there is waiting for a woman like you?"

Every sentence was chosen to strike the softest place inside her.

She could feel the wedding ring on her finger. The metal suddenly felt tight, pressing into skin that had carried the weight for far too long.

"I'd rather be nobody than stay the wife of a man who lied to me for eleven years."

Albert's eyes flashed with anger. "Watch your mouth."

"You're the one who should have watched your marriage."

"I'm a man, Liana. There are things that aren't as simple as you think."

"Betrayal is perfectly simple. You made a choice."

Albert's face went red. He reached for his phone on the vanity table, but Liana had already copied enough evidence. He must have realized it, because his hand stopped in midair.

"What did you send to your phone?"

Liana said nothing.

"Answer me!"

"Enough to remind myself not to forgive you just because I'm afraid of going hungry."

Albert glared at her, then let out a bitter laugh. "You think that evidence will help you win? This house is in my name. The savings are in my name. The car is in my name. Everything you've used all these years came from my money."

Liana felt her thumbnail dig into her palm. That small pain kept her head clear.

"You also used thirty years of my life, Albert."

"Don't be dramatic."

"I'm not being dramatic. I'm collecting what's owed."

Albert closed the distance by one more step. This time, his voice turned glacial.

"If you dare take this outside, I'll make sure everyone knows you're a failed wife. Couldn't keep her husband. Couldn't even keep her own child -- Dede disappeared on your watch. And then where will you go? Jessy's house? How long do you think she can put up with an old woman without a cent to her name?"

The mention of Dede hit Liana's chest like a fist.

For twenty years, that loss had been a wound that never fully dried. And tonight, Albert wielded it like a blade.

Liana held her breath. She did not cry. Precisely because she wanted to cry, she forced her spine to stay straight.

"Don't say Dede's name with the same mouth you use to call that woman's child sweetheart."

Albert fell silent.

For a moment, the bedroom held nothing but the drone of the air conditioner and the weight of their breathing.

Liana pulled the wedding ring from her finger. The skin beneath it was paler, like a part of the body that had gone too long without air.

She placed the ring on the vanity table, right beside Albert's phone.

"Starting tonight, I am done serving you."

Albert looked at the ring, then at her. There was no trace of loss on his face. Only the fury of a man who had just realized something he had always considered his property was beginning to move on its own.

"You'll regret this."

"Maybe." Liana picked up her own phone and gripped it tight. "But I'd regret it more if I stayed."

Albert's lips curved into a thin, cruel smile, heavy with certainty.

"You go ahead and file for divorce. I'll make sure you don't get a single cent. Remember, Liana. Everything in this house is in my name."

Chapter 2: Thirty Years Wasted

Albert's words didn't end in that bedroom. They followed Liana down into the next morning, clinging to her skin like the smell of smoke that refused to fade.

She hadn't slept all night. She sat on the edge of the guest bed with her phone in her lap, opening the photos again, then closing them when her chest grew too tight. Outside the window, the streetlights of the BSD City neighborhood blinked out one by one. The house she had always called home still stood in perfect order, but every corner of it looked foreign now.

At six in the morning, she went into the kitchen anyway.

Not because she had forgiven him. Not because she had given up. Her body simply moved along the grooves of thirty years of habit. Cook the rice. Reheat the side dishes. Fill the water bottles. Wipe down a table that was already clean.

Albert emerged from the bedroom just after seven. His shirt pressed, his hair combed, his briefcase in hand. His face showed no sign of remorse. If someone had looked in from outside, they might have mistaken it for an ordinary morning in the Phua household.

Liana stood near the dining table, watching his back.

"I'm heading to UI," Albert said flatly.

No apology. No explanation. Not even the effort of pretending to feel sorry.

"We're not done talking," Liana said.

Albert stopped at the door but didn't turn around. "I have a meeting."

"Thirty years of marriage matter less than a meeting?"

Only then did he glance back. His eyes were cold. "Don't start this early in the morning. I don't want the neighbors hearing."

Liana held his gaze. Once, a line like that would have been enough to make her swallow every word. The family's good name. What the neighbors might say. The shame of being seen. All of it had always mattered more than the wounds she carried.

"What's shameful isn't my voice," Liana said quietly. "What's shameful is what you've done."

Albert's jaw worked. He wanted to fire back, but chose instead to open the door.

"Think carefully. If you insist on being stubborn, you're the one who'll lose."

The door closed.

Liana stood there for several seconds after Albert's car pulled out of the garage. The sound of the engine faded, leaving behind a house that was far too quiet.

On the dining table, the lunch she had packed for Albert sat untouched. He had forgotten to take it. Or left it behind on purpose.

Liana stared at the lunch box. Thirty years of her life felt gathered inside that small container. Rice measured to Albert's preference. Side dishes not too spicy because of his sensitive stomach. She remembered every dietary restriction in the household, while her own body was rarely asked about.

She sat down slowly.

Her hand touched the surface of the table. This was where Jason had once learned to write. In the chair beside hers, Kim Hwa had sat with a sour expression, ordering Liana to fetch her medicine, warm water, plain congee without salt. For ten years, Liana had lifted that woman from bed to wheelchair, wiped her sweat, cleaned up her vomit, endured her insults.

And before all of that, she had once had dreams. She had nearly made it to university, had kept a brochure for the language department tucked in her drawer, imagining herself working as a translator and coming home with money she had earned on her own.

Then she married Albert.

Little by little, every dream was folded up and put away, until she herself forgot she had ever had them.

Her phone buzzed.

Jessy's name appeared on the screen.

Liana stared at it the way someone stares at an emergency exit in a burning room.

"Lia?" Jessy's voice came through immediately, tight with worry. "What's wrong? Last night I saw you online until dawn. I texted you, and you didn't reply."

For the first time since the night before, something in Liana's chest cracked open.

"Jess," she managed. Her voice broke slightly. "Can I come to your place?"

"Right now?"

"If you're not busy."

"Are you out of your mind? Don't even ask. Come now. I'll be waiting."

Jessy's house was only a few blocks from the Phua residence, still in the same neighborhood. Liana walked because she didn't want to take the car. Every gate she passed, every sound of a housewife sweeping her front yard, reminded her how easy it was for other people's lives to look normal from the outside.

Jessy opened the door before Liana could even press the bell.

She was wearing a house dress, her hair clipped up haphazardly. The moment she saw Liana's face, she didn't ask a single question. She just pulled Liana inside, shut the door, and gripped her shoulders.

"Sit down first."

Liana sank onto the living room sofa. On the table sat two cups of hot tea and a plate of fried bananas that had clearly been made in a rush.

"Now talk," Jessy said. "Take your time."

Liana took out her phone. Her hands had mostly stopped shaking, but when she opened the evidence folder, her breath still came short.

She showed Jessy the first message. The photo of Yuni. The photo of Jayden. The monthly transfers. Golden Crown Apartments. Conversations that stretched back years.

Jessy didn't speak right away. Her face shifted from confusion to shock to anger. Real anger. The kind of anger that nearly made Liana cry, because finally someone wasn't telling her to be patient.

"Eleven years?" Jessy repeated, her voice low.

Liana nodded.

"And the child is ten?"

"Yes."

Jessy covered her mouth, then punched a sofa cushion. "That bastard. Albert is an absolute bastard."

One tear finally fell from Liana's eye. Just one. She wiped it quickly with the back of her hand.

"He said if I divorce him, I won't get anything."

"Does he think he owns this country?" Jessy scoffed. "Lia, listen to me. Divorce him. You have to divorce him."

The word sounded different coming from Jessy. Not like an explosion of emotion, but like a rope thrown to someone about to drown.

Liana lowered her head. "I'm scared."

"Being scared is normal."

"I'm fifty. I don't have a job. I don't even know where to start."

Jessy took her hand. "Start by leaving the house that's killing you slowly."

The sentence made Liana go still.

A house that's killing you slowly.

She thought of Dede's room.

The small room near the staircase that had since become a storage closet. Its walls had once been covered in star stickers. On the highest shelf of the wardrobe, Liana still kept an old photograph -- Dede at six years old, wearing the blue sweater she had knitted herself. The boy grinned with his baby teeth showing, one hand clutching a cheap toy car from the night market.

The day Dede disappeared, the rain had been torrential.

Kim Hwa had said Liana was careless. A mother who truly loved her child couldn't possibly lose him, she had said. That accusation had chased Liana for twenty years. Every night she asked God where her hands had let go, at what moment she had failed.

"Lia?" Jessy called softly.

Liana raised her face. "I lost Dede. I stayed because I thought at least I still had to hold together what was left of my family. But it turns out that while I was punishing myself, Albert was building another family."

Jessy drew a long breath. Her eyes reddened, but her voice stayed firm. "You don't deserve to be punished for the rest of your life."

Liana's phone rang before she could respond.

Kim Hwa's name lit up the screen.

Liana's body went rigid. Jessy saw it too, and her expression hardened.

In the background of the call, a nurse at the nursing home could be heard paging another patient.

"Answer it," Jessy said. "Put it on speaker."

Liana pressed accept.

Kim Hwa's voice erupted without so much as a greeting. "Liana! You ungrateful woman! Albert told me you're asking for a divorce. Have you lost your mind?"

Liana closed her eyes for a moment.

"I'm perfectly sane, Mother."

"Don't call me Mother if you're going to destroy my son!"

Jessy straightened, but Liana raised a hand, signaling she would handle this herself.

"I'm not the one who destroyed this marriage."

"Men face temptation outside -- that's just how it is! You've been living off the Phua family for thirty years. Now, the moment Albert slips up a little, you want to run? Who do you think would want an old woman like you?"

Once, those words would have made Liana shrink.

Today, she only felt tired.

"Kim Hwa," she said quietly.

On the other end, Kim Hwa's voice stopped. Perhaps because for the first time, Liana hadn't called her Mother with the usual obedience.

"What did you just say?"

"I said, Kim Hwa. I've been your daughter-in-law long enough. If Albert was allowed to stop being my husband eleven years ago, then I'm allowed to stop being the daughter-in-law you walk all over."

Jessy watched her, eyes wide with pride.

Kim Hwa shrieked, "How dare you! After everything this family gave you, this is how you repay us? Dede went missing because you were incompetent as a mother. Now you want to fail as a wife too?"

The name struck like a blade.

Dede.

Liana gripped the phone tighter, but her voice stayed level. "Don't use Dede to silence me."

"It's the truth!"

"If it's the truth, then why do you get angry every time I ask for details about that day?"

A beat of silence fell on the other end of the line.

Very brief. But enough to send a chill through Liana's blood.

Kim Hwa hurried to snap back. "Don't twist things around! Come home right now. We'll talk at the house. Stop airing our dirty laundry to outsiders like some cheap woman."

Liana looked at Jessy. Then she looked at the phone screen, as though she could see the face of the old woman who had controlled her life for so long.

"No."

"What?"

"I'm not coming home to be berated."

"Liana!"

"I'll come home when I'm ready. And from today on, don't call me just to hurl insults."

Liana ended the call.

Her hands trembled afterward. Not from fear, but because something long locked away had finally shifted.

Jessy sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Lia," she said gently, "you know, I've always felt something was off about what happened to Dede."

Liana's breath caught.

Jessy met her eyes, dead serious.

"Are you really sure Dede went missing that day because you were careless?"

Chapter 3: The Enemy Within

Jessy's question didn't get an immediate answer.

For two days, the words trailed Liana everywhere. While she washed glasses in the Phua house. While she passed the door of the small room that had once been Dede's. While Albert came home late and looked at her as though she were a minor inconvenience he'd soon dispose of.

Are you really sure Dede went missing that day because you were careless?

Liana wasn't sure.

What she did know was that for twenty years, Kim Hwa had always been quicker to lash out than to answer whenever Dede's name came up. Liana had once assumed it was because the old woman shared her grief. Now, after watching how Albert could lie for eleven years with a perfectly composed face, she was beginning to understand something painful.

In this house, people could keep secrets while sitting at the same table with her.

On the third day after that night, another secret arrived with the sound of wheels on the front porch.

Liana was tidying a kitchen drawer when Albert's car pulled up outside. The door opened. His voice carried louder than usual, forced into calm.

"Careful, Mother."

Liana stepped into the living room.

Kim Hwa stood in the doorway, one hand gripping a cane, the other braced against Albert. Her face was pale, but her eyes were sharp as small blades. Behind them, the nursing home driver set down a bag of clothes and a sack of medication.

Liana stared at the bag.

"You brought her home?"

Albert slipped off his shoes. "Mother wanted to talk."

"No one told me."

"This is her house too," Albert said curtly.

Kim Hwa struck her cane against the floor. "Why? Do I need your permission to enter my own son's house?"

Liana drew a breath. Two days ago, that voice could still make her body go rigid on instinct. Today it still hurt, but it no longer made her retreat.

"Have a seat," Liana said.

"I intend to." Kim Hwa moved toward the main sofa, then surveyed the living room like a judge entering a courtroom. "Call Jason. Call Tiara too. A disgrace like this needs to be settled in front of the family."

Albert didn't object.

Of course he didn't. This was his plan.

Half an hour later, Jason arrived with a haggard face, still in his office shirt. Tiara came in a few steps behind him. The young woman's gaze went straight to Liana. Brief, just a glance. But in that glance, Liana caught the worry she was holding back.

"Sit," Kim Hwa ordered.

Jason sat beside Albert. Tiara chose the chair farthest to the side, not too close to anyone.

The arrangement said everything.

Kim Hwa rested both hands on her cane. "Liana, I hear you're still being stubborn about this divorce."

"That's right."

Jason turned sharply. "Mom--"

Kim Hwa raised a hand, silencing her grandson. "I'm speaking." Then she fixed her gaze on Liana again. "A decent woman doesn't destroy her own marriage. A wife stands by her husband. If a husband makes mistakes, a wife's duty is to cover the family's shame--not throw open the door and walk out."

Liana met the old woman's eyes. "If a husband has another woman for eleven years, is it still the wife's duty to cover the family's shame?"

Kim Hwa scoffed. "Men face temptation outside the home. That's just how it is. What's unusual is a fifty-year-old wife suddenly deciding she's the only one in the right."

Albert said nothing. The kind of silence Liana knew well. The kind that meant he agreed, so long as the words served his interests.

"I don't think I'm the only one in the right," Liana said. "I just don't want to be treated like a servant who can be thrown away."

"A servant?" Kim Hwa laughed harshly. "You live in this house. You eat off my son's money. You carry the Phua name. Without Albert, what would you be?"

Liana looked at Kim Hwa's hands on the cane. Hands she had once spooned medicine into. Hands that had shoved away a bowl of congee just because it was too thin. Hands that now pointed at her as though she were a parasite.

"I'd be the woman who gave up her life for this family," Liana said.

Kim Hwa narrowed her eyes. "Don't exaggerate."

"I came into this house with jewelry from my own family. Some of it was sold to help Albert when he was starting his career. I dropped out of college because you said a daughter-in-law should know her place. I took care of you for ten years when half your body couldn't move. I raised Jason. I cooked, cleaned, managed every family event, kept track of every medication, every doctor's appointment, every installment payment--even the birthdays of people who never once remembered mine."

The living room went silent.

Jason lowered his head briefly. Tiara bit her lip.

Kim Hwa opened her mouth, but Liana wasn't finished.

"And when Dede disappeared, not one of you asked what it did to me. You just pointed at me as the mother who failed."

"Because you were the one who had him that day!" Kim Hwa snapped.

Liana held her gaze. "I had him. But I wasn't the only adult in that house."

Kim Hwa's cane trembled slightly.

Albert finally spoke. "Enough. Don't drag up the past to justify your behavior now."

"The past?" Liana turned to him. "Dede is my son, Albert. Losing him isn't some minor footnote you can fold up and file away."

Jason raised his head. "Mom, Dad's had it hard too."

The sentence landed harder than any of Kim Hwa's outbursts.

Liana looked at the child she had raised from infancy. She was the one who had pressed cool cloths to Jason's forehead when he ran a fever. The one who had waited outside his exam rooms. The one who had patched his school trousers, set aside the best portions for him, covered for his teenage mistakes so Albert wouldn't find out.

"Hard how, Jason?"

Jason looked uneasy, but pressed on. "Dad works hard for this family. If he made a mistake, maybe you should try seeing things from his side too. Don't just jump to divorce. This is going to humiliate everyone."

Something in Liana's chest cracked, finer than before.

"So what you're afraid of is the embarrassment?"

"I'm just saying, don't be selfish."

Tiara stared at Jason in disbelief. "Jason--"

"Stay out of this," he cut her off.

Tiara fell silent at once, but her eyes moved to Liana. There was apology in them. There was helplessness.

In her lap, Tiara's fingers twisted together until her knuckles turned white. She looked as though she wanted to speak but was afraid of making things worse. Liana noticed the small movement. In a living room where nearly everything pressed against her, Tiara's silent sympathy felt like a thin sliver of light beneath a closed door.

Liana gave a small nod--not to Jason, but to herself. Fine. She filed away one more truth tonight.

The child she had raised might not stand by her side.

Albert's phone rang.

Everyone turned.

Albert glanced at the screen, and his face went tense. He moved to reject the call, but Kim Hwa was faster at reading his hesitation.

"Who is it?"

"Nobody important."

But Jason had already seen the name. "Yuni?"

The air in the room stopped moving.

Liana looked at Albert. "Answer it."

Albert gripped the phone tighter. "There's no need."

"Answer it," Liana repeated. "The family's all here, isn't it? Let everyone hear the family member you've been hiding."

Albert's jaw hardened. Perhaps he wanted to refuse, but the phone kept buzzing. Finally--out of panic or frustration, Liana couldn't tell--he hit accept. A woman's voice spilled out immediately; the phone had switched to speaker.

"Albert? Are you home? Jayden's asking again. He says you promised to come this weekend."

Kim Hwa went white. Jason froze. Tiara covered her mouth.

Albert rushed to say, "I'll call you back."

But Yuni had already sensed the atmosphere. "Is Liana there?"

Liana stood motionless.

Yuni gave a soft laugh--sweet, but laced with venom. "Liana, if you can hear me, I just want to say--don't make this harder than it needs to be. Albert's been exhausted for a long time. At your age, it's better to part on good terms than to keep clinging to a man whose heart left home a long time ago."

Jason's face shifted with discomfort. Kim Hwa clutched her cane--not out of anger at Yuni, Liana realized, but because the scandal was now laid too bare.

Liana moved closer to the table and looked down at Albert's phone.

"Yuni," she said calmly.

On the other end, the laughter paused. Perhaps Yuni hadn't expected Liana to respond with such composure.

"Yes?"

"Enjoy your time with him. A man who can lie to his wife for eleven years can just as easily lie to the next woman."

Yuni went quiet.

Albert snapped, "Liana!"

Liana didn't turn. "And one more thing. Don't lecture me about parting on good terms until you've learned how to enter someone else's life on good terms."

Tiara ducked her head, but Liana noticed her shoulders shaking faintly. Not from tears. More like she was holding something in--a small satisfaction she didn't dare show.

Albert ended the call.

"You humiliated me," he said.

Liana looked at him. "You did that yourself."

Kim Hwa suddenly struck the floor with her cane. "Enough! Shameless woman! You think because you have a little evidence, you can win? You think you know everything?"

Liana turned.

Kim Hwa had lost control. Her breath came fast; her face was flushed with rage.

"You don't know anything. Even when Dede--"

The sentence broke off.

The room froze.

Kim Hwa clamped her own mouth shut. Too late.

The blood in Liana's veins seemed to stop. Every sound vanished. All that remained was the name.

Dede.

Slowly, Liana stepped closer to the sofa.

"When Dede what?" she asked.

Kim Hwa turned her face away. "Nothing."

"You just said I don't know anything."

"I was angry. I was talking out of anger."

"No." Liana's voice dropped, colder than before. "You were about to say something."

Albert rose to his feet. "Liana, don't start this again."

Liana didn't look at him. Her eyes stayed on Kim Hwa.

"Kim Hwa," she said, each syllable deliberate and clear. "When Dede--what? Say it plainly."