My wife confessed her darkest secret in Japanese, not knowing I was fluent.
Somehow, that professional distance made it easier to breathe. I spent the next two hours at the coffee shop reviewing my notes.
I needed to make sure I could explain the context of each recording without getting too emotional. I needed to present this clearly and show her the pattern of deception.
Maria’s office was in a strip mall between a dry cleaner and a tax preparation service. It felt appropriately unglamorous for the work of documenting betrayal.
Inside, the walls were covered with certificates and a few generic landscape photos. Maria herself sat behind a desk piled with file folders and a laptop covered in coffee rings.
She was maybe fifty with short gray hair and reading glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. She gestured for me to sit while she pulled out a legal pad.
I played her selected clips of the Japanese conversations, pausing after each one to provide my translation and explain who was speaking. She took notes in quick, efficient handwriting.
When I got to the part where Ikey’s aunt tried to shush her at the party, Maria looked up.
She asked if any other family members seemed uncomfortable with what was being said. I told her about the cousins who wouldn’t meet my eyes afterward.
Maria sat down her pen and explained that while the recordings might not be admissible in court, they were incredibly valuable for building a full picture and identifying witnesses.
“Judges often viewed secret recordings with suspicion, especially in divorce cases, and we needed to be strategic about what we presented and when.”
I felt frustration rise in my throat because I’d worked so hard to gather this evidence.
But she held up a hand.
“That didn’t make the recordings useless. They told us who knew what and when, which meant we could build a legal case through texts, financial records, and witness statements.”
She suggested we prioritize those legal evidence channels, using the recordings as a roadmap for what to look for rather than as the evidence itself.
I understood the practical wisdom in her approach, even though part of me wanted to just play the recordings in court and watch Ikey’s face as everyone heard the truth.
That evening, I maintained my distant but present act with Ike. I responded to her questions about my day with vague answers about work projects and deadlines.
She was scrolling through baby furniture websites on her tablet, asking my opinion on cribs that all looked basically the same to me.
I gave responses that were polite but non-committal. Every word she said felt like it was happening in a different reality from the one I was actually living in.
It was like I was watching a play where I knew the ending but the other actors didn’t.
She showed me a changing table she liked, and I nodded. I thought about how I’d never actually use any of this furniture.
The disconnect made my head hurt, but I kept my face neutral and my voice steady. When she asked if I was feeling okay, I told her I was just tired.
I scheduled a consultation with Wallace Greco for the following morning. He was a family law attorney Maria had recommended who specialized in paternity disputes.
His phone screening had been thorough, asking detailed questions about the timeline of Ikey’s pregnancy and the evidence I’d gathered so far.
He told me to bring copies of our financial statements, the marriage certificate, and any documentation related to the pregnancy.
I spent the evening organizing documents into labeled folders. I created a timeline of events that started with Ike’s mother coming back into her life and ended with Jason’s planned visit.
The clinical act of arranging papers and dates helped me feel like I was taking concrete action rather than just drowning in emotion.
Wallace’s office was in a downtown high-rise with a lobby that smelled like carpet cleaner. His calm professionalism immediately put me at ease despite the circumstances.
He reviewed my documentation methodically, asking clarifying questions.
When we got to the recordings, he explained that paternity challenges were most effective when filed immediately after birth.
He warned me that the recordings of Japanese conversations would likely be inadmissible and could even work against me if the judge viewed them as vindictive.
I felt my jaw tighten at that, but he met my eyes.
He said he understood my frustration, but he just needed me to understand the legal reality we were working within.
Wallace outlined a filing sequence that started with legal separation, followed by a paternity challenge once the baby was born.
He explained that prenatal paternity testing existed, but courts preferred post-birth testing for legal proceedings.
I asked about protecting my finances in the meantime, and he advised opening a separate bank account and documenting all marital expenses.
He said that as a spouse, before any separation filing, I had the legal right to transfer half of our joint savings into my own account.
I should do that immediately to prevent Ike from draining the accounts once she realized I knew the truth.
He also recommended I start tracking every dollar she spent, creating a paper trail that would show her spending patterns and financial dependence.
I opened a new bank account that afternoon at a different branch where nobody would recognize me. I transferred exactly half of our savings, which came to just over $11,000.
I also started a spreadsheet on my laptop, logging every baby item purchase Achie made, every grocery receipt, and every utility bill.
The clinical nature of this financial accounting helped me feel like I was building a case rather than just drowning in betrayal.
I created formulas to calculate her monthly spending and compare it to what she’d contributed when she was still working.
Surveillance and the West Side Apartment
That evening, I was in the kitchen making dinner when I heard Ike on the phone in the living room speaking in rapid Japanese to her mother.
I moved closer to the doorway, pretending to check something in the pantry.
I caught her saying something about moving money into her mother’s account just in case.
My stomach dropped as I realized she was already thinking about hiding assets. Some part of her suspected I might know something, or at least sensed that things weren’t right.
I made a mental note to tell Wallace about this conversation and to check our account activity daily for any unusual transfers.
The fact that she was already planning defensive moves meant I needed to stay ahead of her.
I waited until past midnight when I was asleep before opening my laptop in the home office. I logged into our router admin panel using the password I’d set up.
The connection logs loaded slowly, showing weeks of activity and neat columns of IP addresses and timestamps.
I scrolled through the data looking for patterns, and there it was. Starting three weeks ago, there were video calls happening between 11:00 p.m. and midnight.
They always happened after I’d gone to bed. The destination IP address was consistent, the same unknown location every time, and the sessions lasted between 30 and 45 minutes.
I took screenshots of every log entry and emailed the files to Maria with a brief message asking her to trace the IP.
My hands shook slightly as I hit send. Another piece of evidence was locked down.
Maria’s response came the next afternoon while I was at work. The IP address belonged to an apartment complex on the west side of town.
She’d already pulled the resident directory. Jason Martinez, age 28, unit 3B.
She’d run a background check, too. He had a sales job at a tech company downtown, no criminal record, and was single based on his social media profiles.
I sat in my car during lunch reading Maria’s email, trying to process the bizarre triangle I was stuck in.
Ike was pregnant with Matt’s baby, married to me, and already setting up her next relationship with Jason.
The absurdity of it would have been funny if it wasn’t actively destroying my life.
I forwarded Maria’s findings to my personal email backup and added Jason’s details to the spreadsheet I was keeping.
