Chapter 4 Caught in Adultery

Natalie's POV

I crouched behind a concrete pillar in the parking garage, my nails digging into my palms.

The car was still rocking.

Steady, rhythmic, like it was mocking me.

I pulled out my phone.

My fingers were shaking so bad I mistyped my passcode three times before I got in. I pointed the camera at the car and hit record.

The license plate was crystal clear in the frame. It was Logan's car — the one bought with the money my dad gave us as a wedding gift.

I recorded for exactly forty-seven seconds.

But I knew that our five years of marriage had ended in those forty-seven seconds.

I saved the video, turned off the screen, stood up, and walked away. Two steps in, my legs gave out, and my knees hit the ground.

It hurt.

But nowhere near as much as my heart did.

I pushed myself up off the ground and stumbled over to the car.

I took a deep breath and yanked open the back door.

Whoever was inside clearly hadn't had time to lock it, or was too caught up to remember.

Two bodies tangled together — the woman's dress shoved up to her waist, the man's shirt half unbuttoned, their bodies pressed completely against each other.

"What the hell are you doing!"

I grabbed the bag next to me and hurled it at him, hitting the man on the shoulder.

"Logan, how could you do this to me! To Aiden! You make me sick!"

I didn't even know what I was screaming. My throat felt like something was squeezing it shut — my voice came out sharp and ragged, my whole body shaking.

The man scrambled back from the woman, letting out a muffled yelp.

When I saw the woman's face, my eyes went wide.

"Vivian? How is it you!"

The person Logan was cheating with was my best friend,Vivian Ross!

Her expression shifted from shock to embarrassment as she frantically tugged her dress back down.

"Natalie... I... just listen to me..."

I stared hard at Vivian, nails cutting into my palms. The pain crawled up through my nerves, but did nothing to stop the wave of nausea rising in my chest.

All these years, I'd given Logan the best years of my life. I'd given Vivian my deepest trust.

And they'd both betrayed me together.

"When did you and Logan start?" My voice was shaking. "At my home? In my bed? Or while I was away visiting my parents with the kid?"

Vivian fumbled with her clothes and said, "Natalie, I swear, this is the first time!"

"First time?" I laughed coldly. I didn't believe a word of it. "Logan, you tell me!"

I shouted at the man still buttoning his shirt, my voice echoing through the parking garage.

He finally looked up.

It felt like someone had grabbed me by the throat. Every sound disappeared.

He wasn't Logan.

"Henry?..." I stared at him in shock.

Vivian's husband. Henry Carter.

"Natalie..." Henry's face had gone dark red. He sat there awkwardly next to Vivian.

I looked at them both, a thousand bees buzzing inside my head.

Wasn't Vivian cheating with Logan?

Wait — she was with her own husband. That wasn't cheating at all.

But if Logan wasn't in the car, where was he?

Why were they in his car?

I heard myself ask out loud.

Vivian finally looked up at me, unable to hide how embarrassed she was.

"Natalie, don't be mad. I just... I just borrowed Logan's car. Henry and I have been fighting a lot lately, and we finally made up today, so we... we just..."

"You borrowed the car just to make love in it?"

Henry finally managed to squeeze out a sentence: "Natalie, I'm really sorry. We... we got carried away. We'll definitely get the car cleaned!"

I looked at him, then at Vivian. Something was stuck in my chest — couldn't go up, couldn't go down.

I was angry at them for doing this in the car, and I was also thrown off because Logan wasn't here.

If Logan wasn't here, where had he gone?

I stopped looking at them and walked away.

The elevator doors closed. I leaned against the cold metal wall, fingers still trembling.

I didn't delete the video. Instead, I backed it up to the cloud first, then hid the original file in my phone's album. Even if Logan wasn't in the car, the proof that it had been lent out might still come in handy someday.

Logan wasn't there.

But my heart was still suspended in midair, hanging by a thin thread that could snap at any moment.

The elevator stopped at Brianna's floor.

I don't even know why I pressed that button. By the time I realized what I'd done, I was already standing outside Brianna's hospital room.

Brianna had a VIP private room — spacious, fully equipped, with its own bathroom.

I pushed the door open and walked in, but there was no one in the room. She must have stepped out. I was about to turn and leave when I passed the bathroom and heard a soft, low moan from inside.

A woman's voice, thick and syrupy.

That was the same tone Brianna used when she talked to me — only now it was lighter, more broken, like she was humming with water caught in her throat.

I stared at the bathroom door, confused. What was she doing in there?

I thought something might be wrong. I raised my hand to knock — and then I heard a familiar man's voice.

"Don't make a sound. I think someone's out there."

My blood froze.

I'd slept next to that man for five years. I'd heard him say "honey" more times than I could count. I'd heard him whisper goodnight in my ear on countless nights.

I knew that voice. There was no mistaking it.

Logan.

He hadn't gone to work. He was in another woman's hospital room - in her bathroom - making love with her.

"Then open the door and check," Brianna said with a playful laugh. "And then we can make love by the door..."

She said it in a way that made it obvious what she meant, and Logan was clearly into it.

Then the bathroom door opened.

Before they came out, I had already left the room. I stood against the wall not far away and heard the hospital room door click shut.

Faintly, I could hear the woman's muffled moans, the man's heavy breathing, and the soft rhythmic thudding of something pressed against the door.

The ruptured cyst. The paycheck card. The hickey on his neck. And now the two of them are in that bathroom...

In that moment, every piece clicked together into one complete chain.

Brianna.

The "aunt" Logan always talked about. The woman, he said had saved his life-the poor widow, who needed to be taken care of.

They were together.

And maybe it hadn't just started recently.

I thought back to when Brianna's husband was still alive — how Logan would find excuses to go to her home every few days. How one call from Brianna could get him out of bed and out the door in the middle of the night. How at last month's family dinner, Brianna had picked up food with her fork and put it in Logan's bowl, and he'd smiled and eaten it without a second thought.

Back then, I'd thought they had such a close aunt and nephew bond.

I was such a fool.

My stomach lurched. Acid rose up to my throat. I forced it back down.

I tiptoed to the door, pulled out my phone, pointed it at the glass panel, and hit record.

Tears blurred my vision. I couldn't see what was on my screen. I forced myself not to make a sound.

There were other patients in the rooms nearby. Nurses were walking up and down the hallway. I was afraid someone would hear me.

My own husband was making love in a hospital bathroom with another woman. If word got out, it would be humiliating.

But I couldn't hold it together.

The tears came as if a dam had broken. No matter how many times I wiped my face, they kept coming.

"What are you doing?"

A voice came from behind me.

I flinched so hard my whole body jerked.

There was a rustling sound from inside the room. Logan asked warily if someone was out there.

On pure instinct, I grabbed the person's wrist and pulled him down the hallway, turning two corners until I was sure we were far enough from Brianna's room. Then I stopped.

"Just so you know," the man said, "hidden recordings aren't admissible in court."

I finally looked up at his face.

He was around thirty, tall, and wearing a black suit. His features were sharp — strong brow, clean nose bridge, like they'd been cut with a blade. His lips were pressed together slightly. His eyes held no particular expression, but something about them made it hard to look at him directly.

I gripped my phone tighter. "I wasn't recording anything hidden!"

"The hallway outside a hospital room is technically a public space," he said, cutting me off, his tone unhurried, "but the inside of the room is not."

My heart sank like something had shoved it off a ledge.

I crouched down and buried my face in my knees. The tears came again.

I didn't want to cry — especially not in front of a stranger — but I couldn't stop myself.

Too much had happened tonight. Every image was tangled up together, grinding back and forth across my chest like a dull saw.

The man sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a business card. He bent down and held it out to me.

"Crying won't fix anything. But if you need a divorce lawyer, you can call this number."

I looked at the card.

Miles Mitchell. Summit Law Firm, Partner.

A lawyer.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. He might just be fishing for clients, but he wasn't wrong.

Crying wouldn't fix anything.

I opened my front camera and looked at the face on the screen. Eyes swollen and red. Nose pink. Hair is a mess. Like a dog someone had thrown out on the side of the road.

This was me at thirty.

I'd given up my career, my social life, every possibility I'd ever had. I'd spent my days circling between my child and the kitchen. And this was what I had to show for it.

When I graduated, my professor personally wrote me a recommendation letter for a design firm. The people who joined at the same time as me were all project managers at a minimum by now. And me? The last entry on my resume was five years ago.

Five years.

I gave Logan five years, and he spent them sneaking into a hospital bathroom with another woman.

I opened the camera again and pointed it at myself.

"Today is November 13th, 2024. My name is Natalie. I have recorded video evidence of my husband, Logan, apparently cheating on me in a hospital room."

My voice was rough, but every word came out clear.

"I've decided to get a divorce."

When I said it out loud, the tears stopped.

I saved the video, backed it up to the cloud, washed my face, and walked out of the bathroom.

By the time I was standing outside Aiden's room again, I had put every emotion away.

Aiden was still in bed watching cartoons. A young nurse sat beside him, keeping him company. I thanked her, sat down at the bedside, and touched Aiden's forehead. His temperature was normal.

"Mommy, where's Daddy?"

"Daddy had some work to take care of. He'll be back soon."

"Ok." Aiden's attention drifted back to the screen.

I sat beside him and started scrolling through my old contacts. My professor's WeChat was still there. I still had numbers for my old colleagues from the firm. I went through them one by one, quietly thinking things through.

Forty minutes later, the door swung open.

Logan walked in, a thin layer of sweat on his forehead, one button on his collar done up crooked.

He looked at Aiden first, then came and sat down beside me.

"All done?" I asked.

"Yeah, handled it."

I stared at that crooked button and said casually, "You buttoned your shirt wrong."

Logan looked down and fumbled to fix it, the tips of his ears going red.

"Left in too much of a rush. Didn't notice."

I didn't say anything. I just watched him.

He must have sensed something off in my expression, because he slid closer and put his arm around my shoulder, leaning in to murmur near my ear, "What's wrong, baby? Are you mad at me again?"

"What's that smell on you?"

Logan's hand went still.

Just for a second. But I caught it.

"Probably just sweat from sitting in the car with the AC on too long." He recovered his smile quickly, but his eyes drifted up and to the left.

I'd studied psychology. When someone's eyes move up and to the left, they're constructing an image — in other words, they're making something up.

"Fine," I said, and looked back at my phone.

Logan visibly relaxed and got up to play with Aiden.

For the next two days, I didn't bring any of it up.

Every day, I gave Aiden his medicine, took his temperature, talked to Logan normally when he was around, and when he wasn't, I organized the evidence on my phone and looked up what documents I'd need for a divorce.

On the third morning, the doctor came by on rounds and said Aiden could be discharged.

I got Aiden dressed and started packing up when there was a knock at the door.

Brianna stood in the doorway. She'd changed back into her own clothes, put on light makeup, and had a silk scarf wrapped around her neck, covering that spot completely.

"Natalie, I'm being discharged today, too. We might as well leave together."

She smiled as if nothing had ever happened. I looked at her face and dug my nails into my palm.

Logan took the bag from my hands. "Let's go. The car's downstairs."

The four of us — our family plus Brianna — went down together.

When we reached the car, I reached for the front passenger door. Brianna's hand got there first.

"Natalie, why don't you sit in the back with Aiden? He just got out of the hospital; he needs someone with him."

She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, her voice full of warm concern.

I looked at Logan.

He was standing on the driver's side, one hand resting on the door. His mouth opened slightly, but nothing came out.

He didn't tell Brianna to sit in the back.

I looked down, took Aiden's hand, and opened the rear door.

"Mommy, how come we're not sitting in the front?" Aiden looked up at me.

I lifted him in and buckled his seatbelt.

"Because Mommy wants to sit back here with you."

The car started.

From the back seat, I watched Brianna in the passenger seat — just a center console between her and Logan.

When she turned to say something to him, the scarf slipped a little, and the edge of that mark showed.

Logan's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror for a split second, then he looked away.

Aiden leaned against me and said quietly, "Mommy, your hands are cold."

I tucked my hands into my sleeves and watched the street outside slide past the window.