“When did you start spying on your own husband, Naira?” Bagas asked defensively before he even had a chance to take off his work jacket.
Bagas stood in the doorway of the dining room. His gaze immediately fell on the stack of papers arranged across the black marble table. The clock already read one in the morning.
Naira sat silently at the end of the dining table, both feet planted on the cold marble floor. She had not moved since Bagas entered the house. Her eyes remained fixed on her husband’s face. Tonight, there was no smile to welcome him home. A thick knitted sweater still wrapped around Naira’s body, but the chill she felt came not from the weather, but from the pile of documents on the table.
“I wasn’t spying,” Naira replied flatly. Her voice was quiet. “I was only doing my job as the person in charge of your company’s finances, Bagas.”
Bagas snorted. He tugged his tie loose. The smell of cigarette smoke mixed with sweet perfume immediately filled the room. Naira recognized the scent at once. It was not the perfume she had bought for her husband the week before.
Bagas tossed his work jacket over the back of the chair across from the table, then walked toward Naira.
“Your job is taking care of the house and the children. Not rummaging through the drawers in my office,” Bagas hissed, bracing himself against the edge of the table. His index finger pointed at the company’s account transaction statements.
“There’s evidence in your office that factory operating funds were stolen,” Naira shot back. She pushed the file until it stopped directly in front of Bagas. “Fifty million rupiah every month. Eight months straight. Company funds were transferred into a personal account.”
Bagas’s eyes swept over the rows of numbers on the paper. His jaw tightened, then the muscle in his neck twitched faintly. He pulled out a chair, sat back, and folded his arms across his chest.
“That was a field operating expense. You only work behind a desk, Naira. You have no idea how hard it is to run a business out there. The factory needs bribe money to keep our deals with the timber distributors moving. I deliberately used a shell vendor’s name so our tax reports would stay clean.”
Bagas stared at Naira without blinking. He hoped the excuse would be enough to make his wife believe him.
Naira drew a slow breath, trying to remain calm. Her chest felt tight. She truly never expected her husband to lie so calmly.
“I called Mr. Hadi tonight,” Naira said. “We’ve never had a new logistics vendor. All the mahogany and teak shipments are still handled by Mr. Johan. Mr. Johan also said he’s never handled any bribe money. So when did bribe money start being transferred exactly at midnight into the personal account of a woman named Larasati Wening?”
The name made the atmosphere abruptly fall silent.
Bagas’s eyes widened for a moment. His hands, which had been folded, slowly dropped to the table. He gripped the edge tightly, then swallowed.
“You actually contacted Mr. Hadi just to investigate your own husband?” he hissed. His voice began to rise. “I’m the CEO of this company, Naira! This is my family’s inheritance. I have the right to use company funds to save the business without having to explain everything to you!”
Bang!
Bagas slammed his hand on the table. The glass of water near Naira shook, spilling its contents and soaking the tablecloth.
“You’re accusing me of embezzling money from my own company?” he shouted.
Naira remained silent. Her gaze did not shift even slightly. She had been holding everything in for far too long. Time and again, she had covered the factory’s cash shortfalls, and time and again, she had endured her mother-in-law’s scolding to protect the Bagas family’s reputation. Tonight, she would not back down.
Calmly, Naira wiped up the spilled water, then took a clear folder from her lap.
“Then explain this expense, Bagas.”
She pulled out a hotel reservation receipt and placed it in front of him.
Bagas’s face immediately went pale.
“Three nights in the Presidential Suite,” Naira said flatly. “The dates match exactly with the night you said you had to stay overnight at the Jepara factory because the wood-cutting machine had broken down. The cost was equal to a factory foreman’s monthly salary.”
Bagas opened his mouth, but no words came out. He hurriedly grabbed the glass and drained the remaining water. His hand was trembling slightly.
Naira was not finished. She placed another receipt on top of the hotel reservation.
“This is the purchase of a fifteen-gram white-gold necklace with a diamond pendant. It cost thirty million rupiah. It was paid in full with the company credit card.”
Bagas fell silent. He looked away as sweat began to bead on his forehead.
“It was just a gift,” he muttered hoarsely. “For the wife of a major client from Surabaya who bought our teak chairs last month.”
“Which client’s wife?” Naira asked. “The one who also receives regular transfers from the factory’s reserve account?”
Silence filled the room again.
“Last month, the factory nearly went bankrupt. The daily workers’ wages were three days late because there was no cash. When I asked you for money to cover Swara’s violin competition registration and lodging costs in Vienna, you yelled at me instead.”
Naira’s breathing began to grow uneven. Her fingers clenched around the back of the chair.
“Your own child is still practicing on a violin borrowed from her teacher. I’ve had to cut back on our daily spending. Meanwhile, you’ve spent hundreds of millions on another woman.”
“That’s enough, Naira!” Bagas shouted as he stood. His chair scraped violently backward. “You have no idea what kind of pressure I’m under. Don’t drag the children into my work!”
“You’re the one destroying your children’s future, Bagas.”
Naira stood as well. Her gaze remained fixed on Bagas. Without hesitation, she took the last file from inside the clear folder.
A wedding invitation.
She threw it onto the table, where it stopped directly in front of Bagas.
Bagas’s face went deathly pale. His breath caught as he read the name printed on the invitation cover.
Bagas Pratama and Larasati Wening.