The Infidelity Meter

Chapter 1

I can see a cheating percentage above every person’s head. Once it reaches 100 percent, the number afterward shows how many times they’ve cheated.

I had been careful. I had searched high and low before finally finding a beautiful, devoted wife whose cheating rate was exactly zero.

But one day, I suddenly discovered that her number was rising at a terrifying speed.

When your wife is on the verge of having an affair, what do you do?

Buy poison, or buy a cleaver?

I was around thirteen when I first started seeing a string of bright numbers above everyone’s head.

It wasn’t until the day my parents, Thomas and Eleanor Bennett, had a vicious argument and divorced that I learned what those numbers meant. They measured a person’s cheating rate. Once the number reached 100 percent, whatever appeared after that was the number of affairs they had had.

After witnessing what happened to my parents, I swore that I would find a beautiful, devoted wife with an almost nonexistent cheating rate.

It wouldn’t be easy, but eventually, during college, I found her. Her cheating rate was so close to zero that it was practically nonexistent.

Her name was Chloe Sterling. She was two years older than me, stunningly beautiful, and had the kind of pure, innocent appearance people found impossible to distrust.

Her family situation wasn’t ideal. She and her younger brother depended on their mother, Victoria, while their father, Richard Sterling, was a gambler who had disappeared and left the family tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

But that wasn’t a problem for me.

Over the years, I had quietly made a great deal of money by using my ability to see the cheating rate above people’s heads.

A woman whose number was nearly zero was incredibly rare. To keep myself from repeating my parents’ fate, I had to hold on to her. I pursued Chloe relentlessly, and I even paid off her family’s debts.

After we married, she really was everything I had hoped for. She was capable and devoted, always gentle with me. Ever since my parents’ divorce, I had longed to experience the happiness of having a home again.

Chloe gave that back to me.

Then, about a week ago, the cheating rate above my warm, devoted wife’s head shot from 0.08 percent to 43 percent overnight.

At first, I didn’t take it too seriously. Sometimes, seeing an attractive woman or man in a short video could cause someone’s number to fluctuate.

My best friend Marcus Reed was proof of that. Even after getting married, his cheating rate would twitch whenever he came across videos or photos of beautiful women. Usually, the changes stayed somewhere between 30 and 50 percent.

But gradually, I realized something was wrong.

The number above my wife’s head kept climbing steadily every day. In just five days, it rose from 43 percent to 83 percent.

That meant she was only 17 percent away from cheating on me.

Chapter 2

I couldn’t sit still anymore. I started thinking about all the times I’d caught Chloe sneaking off at night to call and text someone. She had claimed it was one of her girlfriends, wearing an expression of forced calm that did nothing to hide her panic.

Because my first impression of her had been a cheating rate as close to zero as humanly possible, I had naively assumed she was discussing something embarrassing with a friend.

Now I was almost certain she had been talking to some pretty boy.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I became.

I had fought my way up through the years. At only twenty-five, I had become the chief financial officer of a financial services firm. My future had looked limitless.

I had bought a car and a house. I had even paid to completely renovate the house belonging to Chloe’s family.

I had treated her better than anyone could have expected.

I couldn’t understand what kind of pretty boy had bewitched her so completely that she was willing to betray our marriage.

After thinking it over again and again, I decided to keep watching her.

She was my wife, after all, and I still had deep feelings for her. As long as her cheating rate didn’t pass 100 percent, I was willing to give her one more chance.

Friday evening, I came home from work.

Chloe’s face flushed, then tightened with uncertainty. She couldn’t sit still. All traces of her usual composure and gentleness had vanished. Even when she saw me come through the door, she looked like someone who had been caught stealing.

Her face was covered in secrets.

I looked up.

The number above her head had risen from 83 percent to 96 percent.

It glowed red, bright enough to hurt my eyes.

Outwardly, I remained calm. Inside, I had already gone cold.

I knew then that she was only one opportunity away from cheating.

Dry tinder needed only one spark.

When your wife is on the verge of having an affair, what do you do?

Buy poison, or buy a cleaver?

Once dinner was ready, Chloe sat at the table, picking at the food in her bowl. Her mind was clearly elsewhere.

Keeping my expression neutral, I teased her as if nothing were wrong.

“Chloe, when I came home earlier, you looked like you didn’t know whether to sit or stand. You were acting like you’d been caught red-handed. Don’t tell me… you’ve done something behind my back.”

Her entire body jerked. The bowl nearly slipped from her hands.

I knew exactly why she was frightened. Her mind was still filled with that pretty boy.

Guilty conscience.

“O-of course not.” Chloe struggled to compose herself. “Honestly, Ethan, you’ve been getting worse lately. How can you joke about something like that?”

She shot me an indignant look, but the bowl trembling between her hands betrayed how unsettled she really was.

“It was only a joke. Why such a strong reaction?”

I smiled, then deliberately told her a story.

Chapter 3

“By the way, a friend told me something today. One of the women who worked for him had always seemed loyal, gentle, and devoted to her family. No one ever imagined she’d have an affair.”

“When her husband found out, he went berserk. He stormed into her office with a butcher’s cleaver and hacked at her more than a dozen times. There was blood everywhere. She survived, but her face was destroyed, she was left permanently disabled, and she’ll never be able to have children.”

I sighed.

“All because she cheated. She paid such a terrible price for one reckless mistake. It hardly seems worth it. I wonder if she’ll regret that moment of weakness when she spends the rest of her life in a wheelchair.”

The color drained from Chloe’s face. Her bowl slipped from her hands and shattered on the floor.

At the same time, the Infidelity Meter above her head began plummeting wildly.

96%.

63%.

22%.

1%.

I put on a concerned expression. “Chloe, what’s wrong? Did the story scare you?”

She was so flustered she couldn’t even look me in the eye.

“Y-yes. It’s horrifying.” She swallowed. “But… why would you suddenly tell me something so frightening?”

She finally raised her head, searching my expression for some hint that I knew the truth.

I smiled. “We’re always talking about romance and happy endings. I thought I’d change things up and give you a little thrill. Unless you read something else into it?”

“N-no. Of course not. It just caught me off guard.”

She hurried through the rest of dinner, then retreated to the bedroom.

I calmly picked up a piece of leafy green with my fork and let out a cold laugh.

There was a reason I had told her that story. It was meant to frighten her back into line.

It was also her final warning.

After all, my feelings for her ran deep. If there was still a chance to save our marriage, I had to try. But if she insisted on betraying me despite that warning, she would have no one to blame but herself for what came next.

At least I would know I had done everything I could.

Over the next few days, Chloe behaved herself. She became the same gentle, attentive wife she had once been. Perhaps my bloody little story truly had terrified her.

But then my mother-in-law began putting her schemes into motion.

And when she did, every last trace of affection I had for the Sterling family vanished.

That afternoon, Chloe called me.

“Darling, just order takeout for yourself tonight. I need to go back to my mom’s.”

Back to her family’s place?

I frowned. “What happened to your mother? Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, no. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just going back to check on her. Besides, you still have work to do. You don’t need to come with me.”

There were, in fact, a few things at the office that needed my attention, and I couldn’t leave right away. I decided I would simply pick her up after work.

As soon as I finished for the day, I got in my car and drove toward the Sterling family home.

More than two hours later, I arrived.