I unexpectedly came home and found my girlfriend and best friend together, but the thing Chloe saw in the hallway erased her smile

That evening I caught my girlfriend and best friend together in the bedroom, but the worst was still ahead of me. I finished my business trip a day early. I wanted to bring Mason his favorite spicy shrimp noodles and pleasantly surprise him. I stood in line for forty-five minutes at a small restaurant near the coast, holding a warm paper bag in my hand.

In the elevator Chloe texted me: “When he meets your parents tomorrow, I hope he doesn’t run away with his charm again.” I smiled. Chloe had been my closest friend for ten years. She knew that I hated mint toothpaste, that I stuck one foot out from under the blanket while sleeping, and that after a childhood burglary I couldn’t sleep in complete darkness.

Mason remembered everything too. At night he would bring me medicine when my stomach hurt. He left the hallway light on. Once, during a power outage, he sat beside the bed and held my hand until I fell asleep.

“One lamp and you are already dreaming of marriage,” Chloe teased me.

“He loves me.”

“That is exactly why you should be careful.”

I thought she was just joking.

When I opened the apartment door, I saw a woman’s high-heeled shoes by the entrance. They were black, and beneath the heel a small silver star was attached. Those shoes belonged to Chloe. A few months earlier she had told me that her foot hurt terribly, but that she still couldn’t part with them.

The bedroom door was almost closed.

I heard Mason’s quiet laughter from inside.

“Don’t bite me.”

Chloe laughed.

“You are meeting Ava’s parents tomorrow. Are you afraid she will notice something?”

“She won’t notice anything as long as she trusts someone.”

The bag fell from my hand. The hot broth spilled onto the floor and splashed onto my ankle. I felt no pain.

At that same moment my phone trembled. It was a new message from Chloe: “Are you home already? Don’t spend the night kissing Mason; you need to be rested tomorrow.”

Then her quiet voice came from the bedroom:

“I really love him.”

Mason answered:

“Then why are you here?”

The door opened two centimeters. Chloe saw me. Shock, fear, and guilt passed over her face at the same time. Then she quickly closed the door.

A few seconds later Mason came out. His shirt was fastened incorrectly, and the collar was folded inward.

“Ava…”

“I stood in line for forty-five minutes,” was all I could say.

He bent down.

“I’ll bring you another one.”

“You’ll bring me another one?”

Chloe came out wearing my pink house slippers. Her shoes were still standing by the door, completely unharmed.

“The heel broke,” she said.

“Both shoes are here,” I replied.

Chloe’s mouth closed.

Mason opened the first-aid kit.

“Don’t use the blue tube,” Chloe said automatically. “Ava gets a rash from that cream.”

Mason froze.

Chloe immediately put on a defender’s face.

“What kind of boyfriend are you if you don’t remember her allergy?”

That night I slept in the guest room. When I locked the door, I opened our shared tablet for the first time. Mason’s email was still logged in.

I searched for Chloe’s name. Nothing.

I entered her number.

The first email turned out to be a restaurant reservation. Two people. An anniversary dinner.

The second— a hotel in Vancouver. One room.

At the third email my breath caught.

“Transfer documents — Apartment One Hundred Four.”

It was our home. The attachment said that half of the apartment was being transferred into Chloe’s name. The date was seven months earlier.

Then I opened the spreadsheet. Next to my name were monthly payments. Next to Chloe’s initials it said—reserve. Over thirty-one months, twenty-two thousand dollars from my money had been transferred to a separate account.

This was not only betrayal.

It was a plan.

In the morning we were supposed to go to my parents’ house. Mason thought he would talk about the future there. But Chloe did not know that I already saw everything.

But when my father opened the door, Mason’s phone rang. A message appeared on the screen, one he least wanted anyone to see. I reached out and looked at the screen…

On the screen was an email from a real-estate company. The attached contract concerned the purchase of a house in Oregon. Mason and I were listed as the buyers, and my signature was already there.

“What is this?” I asked.

Mason snatched the phone from me.

“It’s an old draft.”

“Why does it have my signature?”

Chloe turned pale.

“You told me Ava knew everything,” she whispered.

Mason looked at her sternly.

“Now be quiet.”

My father saw his true face for the first time.

“My daughter owes you nothing,” he said.

Mason still smiled.

“Everything will become clear soon.”

Just then my phone groaned. A new email arrived. Attached to the contract was a loan application in which I was responsible for an obligation of six hundred and twelve thousand dollars.

But the most terrible thing was written on the last page: the date of moving into the house and Chloe’s name.

Mason was not only deceiving the two of us. He was selling my future.

“I forwarded the email to a lawyer,” I said.

His smile disappeared.

“What lawyer?”

“The one who is waiting for your call now.”

Chloe raised her head. For the first time there was no fear in her eyes. There was anger.

“Mason, why is my name also written on that account?”

He turned toward me and put his hand into his coat pocket. I knew he had something there—probably a document that was supposed to finally tie my life to him…

Mason pulled folded papers from his pocket, but my father quickly blocked his way.

“Put it on the table.”

“This is a family matter,” Mason said.

“My daughter is my family,” my father replied.

Chloe stood by the wall. Her hands were trembling so much that she scratched her own palm with her fingernails. Mason put the documents on the table. Written on top was: “Loan Application and Power of Attorney.”

I went pale.

“I never signed this.”

“You agreed,” he said. “We were paying the apartment expenses together, weren’t we?”

“Not for the house.”

“It was all discussed.”

“A conversation is not a signature.”

Chloe picked up the paper. Within a few seconds the color drained from her face.

“My signature is here too.”

Mason lowered his head.

“You told me I was getting half ownership.”

“That was how it was planned.”

“But this power of attorney takes out a loan in my name!”

Desperation sounded in her voice.

I put the tablet on the table and turned on the audio recording. That morning, when I stood outside the bedroom before returning home, I had accidentally left the recording on. Everything could be heard clearly.

Mason’s voice said: “Ava will sign. I spent three years teaching her to trust me.”

Chloe asked: “What if she finds out?”

“She won’t find out. I’ll get money from her father and then convince both of them that it was their idea.”

Silence fell over the room.

Mason listened to the recording, staring. It was as if he heard his own voice for the first time.

“You recorded this illegally,” he said at last.

“But your lies were legal?” I asked.

My father lowered his eyes.

“Last year you asked me for forty thousand dollars,” he said. “You told me that Ava’s treatment expenses had accumulated.”

Mason’s jaw tightened.

“I was asking for your help.”

“You used my health as an excuse,” I said.

Chloe picked up Mason’s phone. She knew the password. She entered the bank account and froze.

“More than one hundred thousand dollars,” she whispered. “The account holders are you and me.”

“I knew nothing about this account,” Chloe said.

“But money was moving under your name,” I replied.

Mason tried to take the phone away, but my father held his hand.

“Leave my house immediately,” he told him.

“You still haven’t proved anything.”

At that moment someone knocked on the door. On the threshold stood the lawyer Nino Chkheidze, whom my father had called a few minutes earlier. Two investigators were visible behind her.

Nino took my documents and calmly said:

“The proof is already sufficient for the signatures to be suspended and the accounts to be frozen.”

Mason looked at the door for the first time as if it were a trap.

But Nino took out another sheet of paper.

“There is a second problem. The bank confirmed to me that the falsified application was sent this morning.”

“Who sent it?” I asked.

Nino looked at Chloe.

“From her phone.”

Chloe quickly shook her head.

“I didn’t send it.”

Mason lowered his eyes.

And then Chloe saw that inside her bag, beneath a small clasp, lay an unfamiliar memory card. Only one word was written on it by hand—“Confirming.”

Chloe handed the card to Nino.

Nino opened the file on the computer and suddenly stopped.

“Ava,” she said, “there is another recording here. But it was made on the day they first asked your father for money…”