My hands turned cold.

“You mean… someone was watching us?”

“For a long time,” the repairman replied. “And professionally.”

I stood there, unable to breathe. Thoughts spun in my head: his long “business trips,” his sudden fits of jealousy, his strange questions about who visited me during the day. And the fact that he forbade me to touch the air conditioner, as if it hid something sacred.

The repairman placed the camera into a bag.

“You need to decide what to do next. But leaving this as it is is not an option.”

After he left, I sat in the kitchen for a long time, keeping my children close.

Only then did I fully understand that his “business trips” were just a cover. He lived with another woman, cheated on me, and at the same time spied on me. He suspected me of exactly what he himself was doing.