Chapter 4The Low-Maintenance Ex Paying Me Back In Full

I stayed the night at the resort, booking a king room on the third floor of the same hotel, overlooking the pool.

At 11:00 PM, sitting out on the balcony, I sent Serena a message: We'll talk about us when we get back.

She didn't reply.

Then I texted Lucas: Meet me at the airport terminal tomorrow at noon. We need to talk.

He replied instantly: Okay, Ethan! I'll be there waiting.

Lucas was always this eager whenever it came to "talking." Because in his mind, "talking" was merely the prelude to my surrender.

All he had to do was cry, apologize, and claim he was "young and foolish," and the slate would be wiped clean.

Not this time.

I opened the Notes app on my phone and began cataloging every financial transaction from the past few years.

Four years ago, when Serena founded her startup, I transferred $180,000 to her account.

That was the first sum.

Later, when her company hit cash crunches, I wired three more installments totaling $280,000.

She had insisted these were loans that she would repay with interest. I trusted her so completely that I never even asked her to sign a promissory note.

Last year, when she wanted to upgrade to a luxury car and fell short, I gave her another $80,000 from my personal savings.

All together, it totaled $540,000.

A substantial sum, yet it wasn't what mattered most.

What truly mattered was that the core technology driving Serena’s enterprise was built by me.

I majored in computer science and worked as an algorithm engineer at a major tech firm after graduating.

Her startup specialized in an AI recommendation engine. The foundational framework of that proprietary algorithm had been drafted by me over countless sleepless nights.

At the time, she told me: "Ethan, once we go public, I’ll grant you equity."

I got no shares. I didn't even get credited as a contributor.

She took my code, polished it slightly, hired her college buddy as the Chief Technology Officer, and left me without even a contractor status at her firm.

I had never held it against her.

Because I believed in her. I believed she genuinely wanted to marry me, and that between partners, there was no need to keep score.

Now, I was going to keep score down to the penny.

$540,000 in direct loans, plus a proprietary core algorithm valued at no less than eight million dollars.

I wasn't about to "let it slide" anymore.