Part 3Revenge Of The Househusband

After finishing my meal, I walked out the door.

At the bottom of the stairs, I ran into Mona and Jordan. They were laughing, no longer bothering to hide it. They stood there, fingers entwined, glowing with a nauseatingly sweet intimacy.

I acted as if they were invisible, brushing past them.

"Hey, Dave!" Jordan called out. He beamed at me, his smile bright and predatory. "Going out, Dave?"

"You might want to stay out late. I’d hate for you to come home too early and see something you can't handle. Like... this."

He leaned in and kissed Mona deeply, making a wet, deliberate sound that would have made any husband’s blood boil. Mona looked slightly uncomfortable, her eyes darting around.

When he finished, Jordan grinned again. "By the way, Mona said she’s buying me a massive estate in the Hamptons. Did you know? Have you ever even stayed in a place like that? Probably not."

"Tell you what, after the divorce, you can come over and be our housekeeper. That way, you can finally see how the other half lives." He winked, as if he were wishing me well.

The first time I met Jordan, he had that same innocent, sweet smile. He said he wanted to prep for his exams and asked if my wife could tutor him. Three weeks into those "sessions," I heard his heavy breathing coming from her study.

“I just love the taste of a sophisticated, mature woman,” he had whispered.

Last time, I tried to stop them. This time, I was going to make sure they got exactly what they deserved: each other.

I hailed a car and went straight to a labor agency. I hired six men and drove them out to my parents’ old farm in the countryside. It was the only thing they had left me. It had been abandoned for over a decade, overgrown with weeds.

This was the place where I had died in the other life. When Lucas threw me out, I slept on the floor with the insects for days.

In that life, Lucas had pointed to a hole in the floorboards and laughed. "You never guessed, did you? Mom hid over a million dollars in cash! All those 'consultation fees' and gifts from students' parents over the years... she stashed the kickbacks right here in this dump!"

One point two million dollars.

She hadn't touched a dime of it when she was paralyzed. She let Lucas blow her pension on parties while I worked odd jobs to pay for her physical therapy. And then, the moment she recovered, she dug it up to buy herself a new husband. She wouldn't even give me ten thousand for my treatment.

Well, this time, I was taking what was mine.