My husband always forbade me from even getting close to the air conditioner. But one day, it broke down precisely while he wasn’t home. I had no choice but to call a technician. He opened the unit, looked inside, and suddenly went pale.
— “Take your children and leave this house immediately,” he said in a trembling voice.
I froze in place.
My husband, Victor, often went on business trips. Sometimes for a few days, sometimes for several weeks. He would often inform me of his departures at the last minute, and sometimes he would simply present it as a done deal.
After each of his departures, the apartment would fall into silence, but his prohibitions kept echoing in my head. He repeated one more than all the others:
— “Never call a repairman for the air conditioner. And don’t touch it yourself. If anything happens, I’ll take care of it.”
Whenever I asked questions, he always gave the same answer and tolerated no objection.
That day, Victor had left again. His silver SUV disappeared around the corner, and for the first time in a long while, I felt a strange sense of relief.
But in the evening, the air conditioner started malfunctioning again. First there was an unpleasant grinding noise, then a loud bang, and the unit shut off completely.
It was already the fifth breakdown of this kind in a week.
The apartment immediately became suffocatingly hot. The children lay on the living room floor, exhausted by the heat, their faces red.
I called my husband.
He didn’t answer right away. In the background, I could hear unfamiliar voices, women laughing, and even children talking.
— “The air conditioner is broken again,” I said. “I’m going to call a technician. Anyway, you keep fixing it and it doesn’t help.”
His response was a sharp shout:
— “Don’t even think about it! No repairman! No one is to enter this house! Do you understand me?”
The call ended.
I stood there for a few minutes holding the phone, then finally opened an app and requested a repair service.
An hour later, the technician arrived.
He carefully examined the air conditioner, set up a step ladder, and removed the front panel.
At first, everything seemed normal. But a few seconds later, his expression suddenly changed.
He frowned and looked closely inside.
— “Did your husband repair this himself?” he asked.
— “Yes. Several times. Why?”
The man stayed silent for a moment.
— “Where are your children right now?”
— “In the kitchen. What’s going on?”
He took a respirator mask out of his toolbox and put it on. Then he looked at me again.
Worry was visible in his eyes.
— “Take your children and leave. Immediately.”
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I felt a chill run through me.
— “What did you find?”
The technician carefully removed a small rectangular box covered in dust from the upper part of the air conditioner.
At first, I thought it was a filter.
But then I noticed a lens, tiny indicator lights, and a thin antenna.
— “This isn’t an air conditioner part,” he said. “It’s a hidden camera. A professional one. It records video continuously and transmits data remotely.”
My hands started to shake.
— “You mean someone has been watching us all this time?”
— “Judging by its condition, for a long time,” the technician replied.
I slowly sank into a chair.
Strange memories from recent years resurfaced: his unjustified jealousy, constant suspicions, his questions about who came to see me during the day and what I was doing at home.
And his strict prohibition against touching the air conditioner.
Now everything made sense.
The technician carefully packed the device into a bag.
— “You should seriously think about what you’re going to do next. But one thing is certain: you can’t leave things as they are.”
After he left, I sat in the kitchen with the children for a long time.
That was when I finally understood the truth.
All those so-called business trips were lies. My husband had long had another life and another woman.
He was cheating on me, while secretly monitoring every move I made—suspicious of me for doing exactly what he himself was doing behind my back.
