And as the majority shareholder, you have voting power in the company’s decisions, including the fate of immoral employees. Mr. Harrison stared at Mark and Jessica. That sentence was the signal for the counterattack. Now the power was in my hands. I looked at Jessica, who was now as pale as paper. She realized her career was on the brink of collapse. She tried to smile at me—a smile that was a mixture of fear and flattery, but I turned away.

The atmosphere in the room had changed 180°. The guests, who had previously looked down on me, now bowed their heads in fear. They realized their jobs could depend on my mood, but I wasn’t interested in them. My focus was solely on the two traitors before me, Mark and Jessica. I took a deep breath, inhaling the air of freedom mixed with the scent of grief. It was time to clean the trash out of my life. Just as I had cleaned the trash from their party earlier, Mr. Harrison signaled his secretary again. The secretary took out a tablet and turned it on.

In addition to the will, Mr. Harrison said, looking alternately at Jessica and Mark. Our internal audit team has found some suspicious transactions made by Mr. Evans during his tenure. And interestingly, that spending pattern coincides with the lavish lifestyle of one employee. Mr. Harrison stared at Jessica. Miss Davis, perhaps you can explain how you acquired designer handbags and expensive jewelry on a normal employees salary because our data shows that the company funds embezzled by Mr. Evans flowed into the items you are wearing right now. Mark’s eyes widened. He had forgotten about the petty embezzlement he had committed to please Jessica, thinking no one would check the details of operating expenses.

But now, under the president’s direct audit, all his wrongdoings came to light. Jessica’s face transformed into a mask of pure terror. She was trembling violently. The expensive handbag she was holding fell to the floor. The secret of her affair, and her corruption was exposed all at once. It was no longer about a lost inheritance, but a possible prison sentence. The atmosphere in the living room, which had been deathly silent, transformed into a heated courtroom. Mr. Harrison’s secretary held up the tablet, slowly turning it so everyone could see the incriminating evidence on the screen. Mark’s eyes widened as if they were about to pop out of their sockets.

The screen clearly displayed a series of figures and transactions he had kept hidden behind piles of false financial reports. Mark thought he was smart. He thought he could cheat the company’s audit system by dividing large expenses into small receipts under headings like operations expenses or client entertainment. But he had forgotten that the company he worked for had been founded by his late mother-in-law, and its oversight systems were far more sophisticated than his twisted mind. Mr. Harrison pointed to the tablet screen with an accusing finger. He began to break down Mark’s sins one by one in front of his wife and his mistress. The president’s voice was monotonous but sharp, tearing apart the last vestiges of Mark’s pride.

He read a transaction from a month ago for the purchase of a designer handbag at a luxury boutique. The date coincided with the day Mark told me he had to work all night due to a surprise audit. It turned out his audit consisted of going on a luxury shopping spree with Jessica using the company credit card. I felt a tightness in my chest, not from jealousy, but from deep disgust. While I was saving money at home to pay the electricity bill, my husband was squandering company money on another woman. Jessica, whose name was mentioned in the audit report, was trembling violently. Her pretty madeup face was now stained with cold sweat.

She shook her head, panicking, and tried to extricate herself in the most cowardly way possible. Jessica screamed in a high-pitched voice, claiming she had no idea where the money came from. She excused herself by saying Mark had given it to her as a gift and that she thought it was his personal money. Jessica began to cry, but they were not tears of remorse, but crocodile tears to save herself. She pointed at Mark with a finger adorned with fake nails, accusing him of deceiving her. She said he had seduced her and pressured her into accepting those gifts. Hearing Jessica’s betrayal, Mark became furious. His face turned as red as a tomato, and the veins in his neck bulged.

He couldn’t accept being the only one to blame. The illicit relationship they had flaunted, the one they called true love behind my back, crumbled in an instant when their personal interests were threatened. Mark struck back at Jessica. He shouted that she was the one who was always asking for things. Mark revealed that Jessica had threatened to break up with him if he didn’t buy her a new piece of jewelry. They insulted each other publicly, airing each other’s dirty laundry, blaming each other. The scene was both pathetic and cathartic. The two people who had united to hurt me were now tearing each other apart like stray dogs fighting over a bone.

The guests, Mark’s colleagues, watched the fight with their mouths a gape. They felt disgusted watching this cheap drama. They now realized how rotten the morals of their boss and their colleague were. Whispers and mocking laughter began to be heard. Jessica’s reputation as an elegant career woman collapsed in an instant, being labeled a materialistic gold digger. Mark’s reputation as a faithful husband and wise leader also vanished, becoming a stupid, unfaithful, corrupt man. Amidst the chaos, Mr. Harrison signaled his secretary to play a video. It was a recording from the security camera of a luxury restaurant. The screen clearly showed Mark and Jessica on a romantic dinner date holding hands and laughing happily.

The date of the video was our third wedding anniversary. That day, Mark had told me he had a stomach ache and had gone to bed early in our room. It turned out that after I fell asleep, exhausted from household chores, he had snuck out to meet Jessica. Seeing that visual proof, my heart felt as if a giant hand was squeezing it. It hurt. It was bitter. But strangely, I also felt relief. Relief because all my suspicions were confirmed. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t paranoid. My instincts had been right. They were traitors.

I approached the couple who were still arguing. My steps were quiet, but each one silenced them. Perhaps the aura of authority I had inherited from Mrs. Vance now ran through my veins. I looked directly into Jessica’s eyes. The woman instantly lowered her head, not daring to meet my gaze. She had looked down on me before for my simple appearance, but now she seemed very small before me. I spoke in a low but powerful voice. I told Jessica that I had known everything for a long time, but I had kept silent, hoping Mark would change, but it turned out my silence had only emboldened them. I pointed to the plates of food scattered on the table, the same food Jessica had tasted and despised earlier.

I told her in an icy tone to enjoy that last meal. I told her it was the last meal she would eat comfortably in this house and perhaps the last decent meal before facing justice. My words terrified Jessica even more. She tried to grab my hand, begging for forgiveness, calling me dear Sarah in an attempt at familiarity, but I pulled my hand away in disgust. I didn’t need apologies from the woman who had destroyed my home and insulted my mother on the day of her funeral. Mr. Harrison looked at me with pride. He saw in me the reflection of Mrs. Vance. He took control of the situation again.

In a firm voice, Mr. Harrison declared that this evidence was more than enough to bring them to justice. Embezzlement of company funds was not a minor issue. It was a criminal offense. Mr. Harrison ordered his bodyguards to confiscate the handbag and jewelry Jessica was wearing as evidence. Those items had been purchased with company money and were technically company property. Jessica screamed hysterically. When the bodyguard asked her to remove her watch and designer bag, she was completely humiliated and stripped of her luxuries in front of all the people who had once admired her. Her mask was completely broken, revealing her true greedy and cowardly nature. Mark watched as Jessica was treated like a criminal and knew he was next.

Reality hit him with brutal force. The director position he had just celebrated was gone. The inheritance he dreamed of had vanished. The mistress he boasted about turned out to be a latent enemy. And the wife he had trampled on now had full control of his destiny. Mark’s legs gave out. He fell to his knees right in front of me. The man who had yelled at and insulted me two hours ago. The man who had ordered me to serve his guests like a servant now knelt at my feet like a miserable beggar. Tears streamed down Mark’s face. Snot ran from his nose, mixing with the tears, making his face look extremely disgusting.

He began to sob and beg for forgiveness. He grabbed the hem of my dress, trying to kiss my feet. He said he had lost his mind, that the stress of work was so great he had sought an escape. He said he could swear to God he still loved me. He begged me to remember the beautiful memories of our courtship, the sweet beginnings of our marriage. He begged me to forgive him and withdraw Mr. Harrison’s complaint for the sake of our love, for our sacred marriage vows. He even promised to change, to be a good husband, to pray a lot, to do anything if I gave him a second chance.

Hearing those cheap flatteries and stale promises, I felt nauseous. Perhaps the old me, the foolish woman who always believed he could change, would have softened at the sight of his tears. But my mother’s death and today’s events had killed that old Sarah. I looked at Mark with an empty, emotionless gaze. I remembered Mark’s reaction when I returned from the funeral and was crying. That sentence echoed clearly in my ears. What good is crying going to do? Your mother isn’t going to come back to life. That sentence was now a boomerang coming back to hit him. I took a step back, freeing my dress from his dirty hand.

I looked down at him with a calm but piercing voice. I returned his own words to him. I asked, “Why are you crying, Mark?” I said, “There’s no use in crying now. Your tears aren’t going to restore the broken trust. Your tears aren’t going to revive the respect I had for you.” I told him to stop the drama, that it wasn’t going to change any decision. I told him his tears were fake, that he was crying for losing his assets and position, not for being sorry for hurting my mother and me. Mr. Harrison, standing beside me like a protector, finally delivered the final sentence in a voice loud enough for all the remaining guests to hear.

Mr. Harrison pronounced the words of dismissal. He declared that from that moment on, Mark was fired from the company in disgrace. He also stressed that the company’s legal team would immediately proceed with a criminal complaint for the embezzlement and fraud Mark had committed. Mark not only lost his job, but he would be blacklisted throughout the industry. His name would be tarnished, and no company would ever hire him again.

Mark’s ruin was completed when his cell phone in his pants pocket began to ring loudly. It wasn’t the ring of a normal call, but the sound of an avalanche of message notifications. Mark took out the phone with trembling hands. His face turned even paler as he read the screen. They were threatening messages from online lone sharks. To finance his lavish lifestyle and please Jessica, Mark had gone into debt with several illegal loan apps. He had borrowed money at sky-high interest rates, relying on his large salary and promotion bonus to pay the installments. But now his source of income was completely cut off. He had no salary, no bonus, no severance pay due to his dishonorable discharge.

Those collectors seemed to have a sixth sense. They attacked exactly when Mark had fallen to his lowest point. The phone kept ringing. Calls from unknown numbers started pouring in. Mark panicked. He threw the phone to the ground, smashing it as if to silence the bitter reality that was haunting him. But breaking the phone wouldn’t make the problem go away. The debt was real, and now he had to face it alone without a cent in his pocket. Mark’s colleagues, witnessing the complete destruction of their former boss, began to leave one by one. They no longer wanted anything to do with him. They looked at him with disgust and contempt.

Some even spat on the floor as they passed him, a sign of disdain for his immoral attitude towards his wife and mother-in-law. The guests left without saying goodbye to Mark. They only nodded respectfully to me and Mr. Harrison before hastily exiting the house, which now felt like hell for Mark. Mark was alone, truly alone, in the middle of the messy living room. Jessica was being held by a bodyguard in a corner of the room, too busy lamenting her own fate to worry about him. I no longer felt small, but stood tall with pride. I felt strong. I had seen the villain of my life crumble due to his own actions.

Karma had arrived quickly, instantly, and painfully. I looked at Mark one last time, and then turned my back on him. I walked to my mother’s photo, which still hung on the wall. I caressed the frame, whispering in my heart that justice had been done. There was nothing left that could harm us. But Mark’s punishment was not yet over. Mr. Harrison signaled to his head of security, “It was time to take out the trash from this house. Mark no longer had the right to be here. This house was mine, inherited from my mother, and I did not want to share the same roof with the man who had desecrated our sacred marriage.

The eviction was about to happen, and Mark was going to feel what it was like to be discarded like a useless piece of junk. Just as he had wanted to discard the memory of my mother from this house that very morning, the sky outside began to darken with gathering storm clouds, as if nature itself was ready to greet Mark with a cold storm, as cold as the fate that awaited him on the street. The sky outside had turned a lead and gray, as if the universe were echoing the tension in our living room. The echo of Mr. Harrison’s voice firing Mark still reverberated off the walls, creating an atmosphere that was suffocating, yet for me liberating.

The last of the guests had hastily departed, heads bowed, leaving only Mark and Jessica, cornered like rats discovered in a granary. I stood tall beside Mr. Harrison, watching with an empty gaze as Mark remained kneeling on the floor. His shattered cell phone lay beside his knee, a dead object that was a silent testament to his financial ruin. But the social and economic punishment was not enough. There was one matter left to resolve, one final possession that had to be stripped from him for my victory to be absolute and complete. It was this house, the house Mark had proclaimed as his palace, the place where he had acted like a king with absolute power over my mother and me.

With the last shreds of courage he could muster from the rubble of his shattered pride. Mark tried to stand. His legs trembled, but he forced himself to look at me. His eyes were red, swollen, and revealed absolute panic. He knew he had lost his job. He knew he had lost his reputation, but he still believed he had a place to stay. In a hoarse voice that tried to sound firm, Mark pointed to the exit and yelled at me. He was kicking me out. He said that if I really wanted to break up with him and side with Mr. Harrison, I had to leave his house.

Mark loudly proclaimed that this house was the fruit of his labor, his home, for which he paid the mortgage every month, and that I had no right to stay if I didn’t obey him. He yelled that I could keep all of my mother’s inheritance, but this house was his. I looked at him with profound pity. How pathetic was the man before me. He had lived so long in the fantasy he had created for himself that he had forgotten what was real and what was a lie. I didn’t respond to his shouts. I simply turned slowly towards Mr. Harrison, signaling that it was time to play the final card.