He Locked The AC At Sixteen While I Bled In Pain Chapter 06

He Locked The AC At Sixteen While I Bled In Pain Chapter 06

The cramping in his stomach grew sharper, causing Ethan to double over in agony. He looked up, his gaze cutting across the coffee table to land on the corner of the living room.

The cheap synthetic comforters he had ordered the workers to dump were still piled there. And resting on top, the scissors stained with dried blood gleamed mockingly under the dim lights, making it hard to breathe.

He suddenly remembered that night when Nadia had held up her bleeding hand, her voice trembling as she asked him: “Can’t you see the blood on my hand?”

And what had he said? He had looked away. He had criticized her for being immature, for resorting to self-harm.

“What on earth… did I do?” Ethan slumped onto the hardwood floor. It was the first time in two weeks that he felt a real, unadulterated terror.

The next morning, a phone call from the house cleaning service completely shattered the last line of Ethan’s self-delusion.

“Mr. Hayes, Miss Anna isn’t home today,” the maid said over the line. “While I was cleaning the living room, I accidentally tore open a black shipping box thinking it was trash, and the contents spilled all over the floor… Should I repack them for Miss Anna?”

“What kind of contents?” Ethan asked, rubbing his aching stomach.

“Well… it’s a bunch of heavy, insulated thermal underwear and a large pack of disposable body warmers. I know Miss Anna usually complains about the heat even with the AC at sixty degrees, so I wondered why she would buy all this winter gear.”

The maid’s casual observation struck Ethan like a physical blow. Why would someone who supposedly had hyperthyroidism and broke out in hives from the heat buy heavy thermal clothing?

“Don’t touch any of it. I’m coming home right now,” Ethan said. He slammed the phone down and immediately called the director of the hospital where Anna had her medical checkup years ago.

“Pull the original file for Anna’s medical report from two years ago,” Ethan demanded. “Yes, the raw file, not the digital copy she emailed to me.”

Half an hour later, an encrypted document landed in Ethan’s inbox. He opened the attachment, his eyes locking instantly onto the diagnosis section.

“Severely cold-sensitive constitution, low basal metabolic rate. No abnormalities relating to hyperthyroidism detected.”

Ethan’s hands began to shake uncontrollably. There was no hyperthyroidism. Not only was she not sensitive to heat, but she was actually terrified of the cold.

Over the last five years, every single time Anna used the excuse of being too hot to force the temperature down to sixty degrees, every single time he watched Nadia shivering under the blankets while righteously lecturing her for being intolerant—it had all been a total, calculated lie.

Ethan stood up abruptly. He logged directly into the backend logs of the home’s smart climate system. He had personally commissioned this custom system; it didn’t just regulate temperature—it also featured a hidden ambient audio capture function for system diagnostics.

He restored the data from the early morning hours of the night Nadia had cut the cord. A slightly grainy audio clip began to play through his desktop speakers.

“Yeah, I don’t have hyperthyroidism. I’m actually freezing to death,” Anna’s voice came through, dripping with a malicious satisfaction. “But as long as I pretend to break out in hives, Ethan will lock the AC at sixty degrees forever.”

Then came her contemptuous laugh directed at the monitor screen. “Watching that dowdy bitch rolling around while everyone treats her like a lunatic is honestly the best feeling ever. In this house, if I say it’s sixty degrees, it doesn’t get to be sixty-one!”

Ethan brought his fist crashing down onto the mahogany desk, his knuckles splitting open instantly.

That morning, Nadia had been suffering through agonizing cramps, pushed to the brink of desperation just to fight against that freezing draft. And he, for the sake of a woman spinning web after web of lies, had ruthlessly stripped away his wife’s access to her own home.

Right then, his phone rang again. It was an unrecognized landline number.

“Hello, is this Ethan Hayes? I am the orthopedic surgeon from the City Medical Center,” a stern, angry voice said.