CHAPTER 1
The scream pierced through the quiet hum of the football game on TV, shattering my Sunday afternoon.
“Mark! Mark, help me!”
I dropped my beer, the glass foaming onto the carpet, and sprinted from the kitchen. I found Sarah clutching the edge of the granite island, her knuckles white, her other hand gripping her swollen, eight-month-pregnant belly.
Her face was pale, beads of sweat already forming on her forehead. She looked terrifyingly fragile.
“Sarah! What is it? Is it the baby?” I was on my knees instantly, my hands hovering over her, afraid to touch, afraid to make it worse.
She let out a whimper that tore my heart in two. “I… I felt a sharp pain. Like a knife. I feel faint, Mark. The room is spinning.”
She buckled. I caught her just before she hit the hardwood floor, scooping her up into my arms. She felt lighter than she should have, despite the baby. I carried her to the living room sofa, my mind racing through every worst-case scenario. Preeclampsia. Early labor. Something worse.
“I’m calling 911,” I said, fumbling for my phone with trembling hands.
“No!” Her hand shot out, gripping my wrist with surprising strength. “No ambulance. It’s… it’s too expensive. Our deductible hasn’t kicked in. We can’t afford a three-thousand-dollar ride, Mark.”
“I don’t care about the money, Sarah!”
“I do!” She gasped, squeezing her eyes shut. “It’s just… my blood sugar. And the stress. I need those specific electrolytes. The ones Dr. Evans prescribed. And the anti-nausea meds. We’re out.”
“I’ll go to CVS down the street,” I said, already standing up.
“No, not CVS. They don’t carry the compound one. You have to go to the 24-hour pharmacy in West Creek. Please, Mark. Just get the medicine. I just need to lie down. If I’m not better when you get back, we’ll go to the ER. I promise.”
West Creek was twenty minutes away. Forty minutes round trip.
“I can’t leave you like this,” I pleaded, looking at her heaving chest.
She opened her eyes. They were wet with tears. “Please. For our son. Just go. I’ll be fine. I just need to lay still.”
That was the trigger. For our son.
I kissed her forehead—it was cold and clammy—and sprinted out the door.
My Ford F-150 roared to life in the driveway. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I backed out, tires screeching slightly, earning a dirty look from Mrs. Linda, our neighbor who was watering her hydrangeas.
I didn’t care. My wife was in pain. My son was in danger.
I drove like a maniac for the first two miles, running a yellow light that was definitely turning red. My hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard my fingers ached.
“Don’t panic,” I told myself. “She’s strong. She’s just dehydrated. We’ve been stressing about money too much. It’s my fault. I took those extra shifts at the garage, but I’m still not bringing in enough.”
I reached for my back pocket to check for my debit card.
Empty.
My stomach dropped through the floorboards.
I patted my shirt pocket. The center console. nothing.
In my panic to save my wife, I had left my wallet on the kitchen counter, right next to the spilled beer.
I screamed a curse word that shook the cab of the truck. I had to go back. I whipped the truck around in the middle of the empty suburban street, hopping the curb slightly, and gunned it back toward the house.
It had only been five minutes. I’d grab the wallet, check on her one more time, and then speed to the pharmacy.
As I turned onto our street—Oakwood Drive—I slowed down. I didn’t want to panic Sarah by bursting in again. I wanted to be calm. Capable.
That’s when I saw it.
There was a car parked three houses down from ours. A sleek, black convertible. It looked out of place among the SUVs and minivans of our neighborhood. It looked familiar, but my brain was too scrambled to place it.
I pulled into my driveway, but instead of rushing to the front door, something made me pause.
The house was silent. The blinds in the living room, where I had left Sarah gasping for air, were drawn tight.
I jogged up the steps, but realized my keys were attached to the truck ignition. I had left the truck running. Instead of going back, I figured I’d just slip in through the back slider; we never locked it during the day.
I walked around the side of the house, past the AC unit that rattled in the summer heat.
I rounded the corner to the backyard.
And I froze.
There was a man in my backyard.
He wasn’t a burglar. He wasn’t wearing a mask. He was wearing expensive dark denim and a fitted white t-shirt that showed off hours at the gym.
He was standing on top of our patio table, hoisting himself up toward our bedroom window—the window directly above the living room where my “dying” wife was supposed to be lying on the couch.
In his left hand, clamped tight, was a massive bouquet of long-stemmed red roses.
I blinked. I actually blinked, thinking the stress had induced a hallucination.
The man got a foothold on the siding. He looked familiar. The sharp jawline. The arrogant posture.
It was Julian.
Sarah’s ex-boyfriend from college. The one she said was “toxic.” The one she swore she blocked on everything three years ago when we got married. The rich real estate broker who always made me feel like a grease monkey whenever we ran into him around town.
He wasn’t breaking in to steal a TV.
He was climbing in because he was expected.
As he swung his leg over the sill of our bedroom window, he paused. He must have felt eyes on him. He looked down.
He saw me standing there, breathless, my mechanic’s shirt stained with sweat.
For a second, I expected him to panic. To slip. To drop the flowers.
He didn’t.
Julian looked at me, adjusted his grip on the roses, and smirked. A cold, cruel, knowing grin that said, ‘I won.’
Then, he disappeared into my bedroom.
And from inside the room—the room where my wife should not have been—I heard a giggle.
Not a groan of pain. Not a cry for help.
A giggle. Clear, excited, and vibrant.
My knees, which hadn’t buckled when my wife collapsed, nearly gave out now. The world didn’t just spin; it shattered.
She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t dying. She had sent me forty minutes away to buy sugar pills so she could have forty minutes with him.
I stood there in the grass, the sound of the neighborhood lawnmowers buzzing in my ears, feeling the blood in my veins turn to absolute ice.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t run inside and start swinging.
A strange, dark clarity washed over me.
If they wanted a show, I was going to give them a finale they would never forget.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and hit record.
Then, I started climbing the drainpipe.
CHAPTER 2: THE COST OF LIVING
The trellis against the side of our house was meant for the wisteria Sarah insisted we plant two years ago. “It’ll be romantic,” she had said, her eyes lighting up with that Pinterest-perfect vision she always chased. “Like a cottage in a movie.”
I had built the trellis myself, stripping the wood, staining it a deep cedar, sinking the posts deep into the clay soil of our backyard so it would last forever. I built everything in this house to last forever.
Now, as I hauled my two-hundred-pound frame up that same trellis, the wood groaned under my weight, digging into the palms of my hands. My mechanic’s boots scrambled for purchase on the slats, crushing the dried vines. I didn’t care. I didn’t feel the splinters. I didn’t feel the strain in my shoulders.
All I felt was the cold, hard weight of the phone in my pocket, recording every second of this nightmare.
The bedroom window was open. We kept it open in the evenings to save on AC—another one of my “penny-pinching” strategies that Sarah rolled her eyes at.
I reached the top, grabbing the sill. My knuckles were white, grease-stained from the garage, trembling not from exertion, but from a rage so pure it felt like liquid nitrogen pumping through my veins.
I hoisted myself up just enough to peer over the ledge.
The scene inside hit me harder than any lug wrench ever could.
Sarah wasn’t lying down. She wasn’t pale. She wasn’t clutching her stomach in agony, begging for the compounded nausea medication that cost $80 a bottle—money I had scraped together by skipping lunch for two weeks.
She was sitting on the edge of our bed—the bed I had bought on a payment plan so she could have the best mattress for her bad back. She was laughing.
It wasn’t a nervous laugh. It was a light, flirtatious, carefree sound that I hadn’t heard directed at me in years.
Julian was standing in front of her, his back to the window, his posture relaxed, dominant. The bouquet of roses was tossed carelessly onto the dresser, right on top of a stack of unpaid medical bills I had been stressing over that morning.
“I told you he’s an idiot,” Julian said, his voice smooth, devoid of any guilt. “He panic-ran out of here like a dog chasing a mail truck. You’re too good at this, babe.”
Sarah giggled again, leaning back on her hands. Her maternity dress pulled tight over her belly—my son. Or at least, I thought he was my son. The thought made my vision blur.
“He’s just… simple,” Sarah said, and her voice was different. It wasn’t the sweet, slightly needy voice she used with me. It was colder, sharper. “I feel bad, sometimes. He tries so hard. It’s pathetic, really. But Julian, the timing… are you sure the transfer went through? If he checks the bank account and sees the deposit…”
“He won’t,” Julian assured her, stepping closer and placing a hand on her knee. A hand that wore a Rolex worth more than my truck. “He’s too busy trying to figure out how to pay for gas to check the savings account. Besides, by the time he figures it out, we’ll be in Aspen. I’ve already got the rental set up for after the birth.”
I felt bile rise in my throat. Aspen? She told me she wanted a home birth because hospitals were “too sterile,” but really, she was planning a getaway?
“I just can’t stand the smell of him anymore,” Sarah sighed, looking down at her hands. “He comes home smelling like oil and sweat. It clings to everything. I want our baby to smell like… like clean laundry and expensive cologne. Like you.”
That was it.
The dam broke.
I didn’t climb in quietly. I threw my leg over the sill and kicked the screen in. It clattered onto the hardwood floor with a deafening crash.
Sarah screamed—a real scream this time, high and terrified. She scrambled backward on the bed, pulling the duvet up as if to shield herself.
Julian spun around, his eyes widening. For a split second, the arrogant mask slipped, replaced by genuine shock.
“Mark?” Sarah gasped, her face draining of color for real this time. “Mark, wait, I—”
I stepped fully into the room. I was breathing hard, my chest heaving. I held the phone up, the red recording dot blinking steadily on the screen.
“Don’t,” I said. My voice sounded strange to my own ears—low, guttural, dangerous. “Don’t you dare give me the ‘it’s not what it looks like’ speech. I’m not the ‘simple’ idiot you think I am, Sarah.”
Julian recovered first. He smoothed his jacket, a smirk creeping back onto his face. He held his hands up, palms open, but there was no surrender in his eyes. Just condescension.
“Okay, calm down, grease monkey,” Julian said, stepping between me and Sarah. “Let’s not make this a domestic dispute. You’re trespassing.”
“Trespassing?” I laughed, a harsh, barking sound. “My name is on the deed, Julian. My sweat is in the walls. You’re the one who climbed through a window like a rat.”
I moved closer, and Julian took a step back. He was fit, sure, gym-fit. But I lifted engine blocks for a living. I could snap him in half, and he knew it.
“Mark, please!” Sarah cried out, tears streaming down her face now. “Please, put the phone away. Let’s talk about this. You’re scaring me. You’re scaring the baby!”
“The baby?” I turned my gaze to her. She flinched. “You used the baby as a distraction. You faked a medical emergency—you made me think our child was dying—so you could screw him?”
“We weren’t—we were just talking!” Sarah stammered.
“I heard you!” I roared, and the room shook. “I heard you call me pathetic. I heard you talking about Aspen. I heard you talking about the bank account.”
Sarah went silent. The truth hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.
I looked at the dresser. The unpaid bills. The roses. And then, something else caught my eye. A small, velvet box sitting next to the roses. A jewelry box.
I walked over to it. Julian moved as if to stop me, but I shot him a look that froze him in place.
I flipped the box open. Diamond earrings. Solitaires. Massive ones.
“Happy anniversary, huh?” I whispered. Our anniversary was next month. I had been saving for six months to buy her a new charm for her bracelet—a little silver wrench, a joke between us about how I ‘fixed’ her heart. It cost $150.
These earrings cost five grand, easy.
“Mark, listen to me,” Julian said, his tone shifting to a business-like negotiation. “It’s over. It’s been over. Sarah has been unhappy for a long time. She needs a lifestyle you can’t provide. Look at you. Look at this house. It’s… quaint. But it’s not her.”
“And you are?” I asked, turning to face him.
“I can take care of her,” Julian said. “And the kid. Let’s be adults here. We can handle this quietly. You sign the papers, you walk away, and maybe… maybe I cut you a check for your trouble. For the ‘renovations’ you did.”
He was trying to buy me off. He was trying to buy my wife and my life like it was a foreclosure property.
I looked at Sarah. I waited for her to defend me. I waited for her to tell him to go to hell, that she loved me, that we made vows.
She just looked down at the duvet, twisting her wedding ring—my grandmother’s ring—around her finger.
“Is it true?” I asked her, my voice breaking. “Am I just… a placeholder until something better came along?”
She looked up, her eyes hard. “Mark, look at our life. We clip coupons to buy pizza. I can’t buy new clothes without checking the budget app. Julian… Julian takes me to places where they don’t put prices on the menu. I want that. I want that for the baby. I don’t want him to grow up smelling like grease.”
The words were like physical blows. Every overtime shift. Every weekend spent fixing the roof myself to save money. Every “I love you” whispered in the dark. It was all garbage to her because I wasn’t rich.
“And the baby?” I asked, the question I was most afraid of. “Is he mine?”
Silence.
The silence stretched out, agonizing and cruel. The lawnmower outside had stopped. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall.
Sarah bit her lip. She looked at Julian, then back at me.
“We… we don’t know,” she whispered.
My world didn’t just end. It evaporated.
I stood there, the phone still recording, feeling the floor drop out from under me. The nursery down the hall, painted soft yellow, with the crib I had sanded by hand. The little onesies folded in the drawer. The dreams of teaching him to catch a baseball.
Stolen. Or maybe, never mine to begin with.
I lowered the phone.
“Get out,” I said.
“Mark, you can’t kick me out, I’m pregnant!” Sarah shrieked.
“I’m not talking to you,” I said, looking at Julian. “Get out of my house. Now. Before I forget that I’m a good man.”
Julian smirked again, straightening his jacket. “Fine. I’ll be outside. Sarah, grab your bag. We’re leaving.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” I said. “Not until we sort this out.”
“I’m going with him, Mark!” Sarah yelled, scrambling off the bed. She didn’t look faint anymore. She moved with purpose, grabbing a Louis Vuitton duffel bag from the closet—a bag I had never seen before. She must have been hiding it.
She started throwing clothes into it. “I’m done. I’m done pretending this… this poverty is romantic. I’m done pretending you’re enough.”
I watched her. I didn’t stop her. I realized, watching her frantically pack her things while her lover waited by the door, that the woman I loved didn’t exist. I had fallen in love with a role she was playing.
“Fine,” I said, my voice dead calm. “Go.”
Sarah paused, holding a stack of maternity shirts. She looked surprised that I wasn’t begging.
“Go,” I repeated. “But leave the ring.”
She looked at her hand. My grandmother’s ring. A modest diamond, but an heirloom.
“It’s stuck,” she lied.
“Soap helps,” I said, pointing to the master bathroom.
She glared at me, hatred in her eyes, but she marched into the bathroom. A moment later, she came out and slammed the ring onto the dresser next to the roses.
“It was too small anyway,” she spat.
She grabbed the duffel bag. Julian put his arm around her, guiding her toward the door like he was rescuing a princess from a dragon.
“You’ll hear from my lawyer,” Julian said over his shoulder. “Don’t make this hard, Mark. You can’t afford a legal battle against me.”
They walked out of the bedroom. I heard their footsteps down the stairs. The front door opened and closed.
I walked to the window—the window Julian had climbed in. I watched them walk to the black convertible. Julian opened the door for her. She got in, not looking back at the house, not looking back at the life we built.
As they drove away, the silence in the house was deafening.
I looked at the phone in my hand. 12 minutes of footage.
I looked at the ring on the dresser.
I looked at the unpaid bills.
I felt a tear slide down my cheek, hot and stinging. But it wasn’t a tear of sadness. Not anymore.
I walked over to the dresser and picked up the ring. I put it in my pocket.
Then I picked up the roses. Beautiful, red, thorny roses.
I threw them on the floor and crushed them under my boot, grinding the petals into the hardwood until all that was left was a red smear.
I wasn’t going to fight Julian in court with money I didn’t have. He was right about that. I couldn’t out-spend him.
But I had something he didn’t.
I had the truth. And in the age of the internet, the truth was worth more than his entire real estate portfolio.
I unlocked my phone again. I didn’t stop the recording. I switched to the front camera.
My face was gaunt, streaked with grease and sweat, eyes red-rimmed. I looked like hell.
“My name is Mark,” I said to the camera, my voice steady. “And ten minutes ago, I thought I was rushing to save my wife’s life. Let me show you what I found instead.”
I hit ‘Stop’.
Then, I opened Facebook.
CHAPTER 3: THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION
I sat on the edge of the bed where my marriage had just ended. The sheets were still rumpled. The faint scent of Julian’s expensive cologne—sandalwood and arrogance—lingered in the air, overpowering the smell of the lavender detergent Sarah used to insist we use.
My thumb hovered over the ‘Post’ button.
I had written a caption. I deleted it. I wrote another. Deleted it. Finally, I settled on the truth. No embellishments. No insults. Just cold, hard facts.
“My pregnant wife called out in pain, claiming she was fainting and needed emergency medication from a pharmacy 20 minutes away. I ran out to save her. I forgot my wallet and came back five minutes later. This is what I found. If you’re a client of Julian Banks at Banks Realty, or if you’re his fiancée he mentions at the country club, you might want to watch this.”
I took a deep breath. The house was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator humming downstairs.
I pressed ‘Post’.
I uploaded it to my personal page. Then, I shared it to the “West Creek Community Buzz” group—a page with 15,000 local members where people usually complained about dog poop and loud fireworks.
Then, I put the phone down on the nightstand, facedown.
I needed to clean.
I moved like a robot. I stripped the bed. I didn’t just wash the sheets; I took the sheets, the duvet cover, and the pillows, stuffed them into a garbage bag, and marched them out to the trash bin in the garage. I couldn’t sleep on them again.
I went back upstairs and saw the crushed roses on the floor. I swept them up. I found the receipt for them tucked into the ribbon. $250. 12 Long Stem Red Roses. Billed to: Banks Realty Corporate Account.
I let out a dry, humorless chuckle. He wrote off his affair as a business expense.
Ten minutes had passed.
My phone buzzed.
Then it buzzed again.
Then it started vibrating continuously, dancing across the nightstand like a nervous insect.
I picked it up.
42 Notifications. 105 Notifications. 300 Notifications.
I opened the app. The video had been viewed 4,000 times in fifteen minutes. The comments were scrolling so fast I could barely read them.
“OMG is that Sarah? I just saw her at the grocery store yesterday looking so happy!” “Wait, isn’t that Julian Banks? I just bought my house through him!” “The audacity to fake a medical emergency while pregnant… that is pure evil.” “Bro, I am so sorry. You don’t deserve this.” “I know his fiancée! Someone tag Vanessa!”
The town was waking up. In the suburbs, gossip travels faster than light, and scandal is the only currency that matters. I had just dropped a nuclear bomb into the center of the Homeowners Association.
My phone rang. The screen flashed: “Wife.”
I stared at it. I watched it ring until it went to voicemail.
It rang again immediately.
I declined it.
Then, a new number popped up. No Caller ID.
I knew who it was. I swiped green and put it to my ear, saying nothing.
“You son of a bitch!” Julian’s voice was unrecognizable. The smooth, practiced baritone of a salesman was gone, replaced by the shrill panic of a man watching his life burn. “Take it down! Take it down right now!”
“Hello, Julian,” I said, walking over to the window to look out at the quiet street.
“You have no right!” he screamed. “That was a private moment! It’s illegal to record people without consent!”
“Actually,” I said, my voice calm, “in our state, it’s a one-party consent law. And since I was a party to the conversation—specifically the part where you tried to bribe me in my own bedroom—it’s perfectly legal. Also, you were in my house. Breaking and entering, technically.”
“I will sue you into the ground!” he roared. “I will take that truck, that house, and the shirt off your back! Do you know who I am?”
“I do,” I said. “You’re the guy who bought roses with a corporate card. How’s the ethics board going to like that?”
There was a silence on the other end. A heavy, terrified silence.
“Mark,” he said, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. “Mark, listen. We can work this out. Name your price. Seriously. I have cash. I can wire you fifty thousand dollars right now. Just delete the post.”
Fifty thousand dollars. That would pay off the truck. It would pay off the credit cards Sarah maxed out. It would give me a fresh start.
“I don’t want your money, Julian,” I said.
“Then what do you want?!”
“I want you to explain to your fiancée why you were in my bedroom,” I said. “And I want Sarah to explain to her parents why she’s homeless.”
I hung up.
I blocked the number.
I went downstairs to the kitchen. The spilled beer was still drying on the carpet. I grabbed a rag and started scrubbing. It felt good to do something with my hands.
As I scrubbed, I thought about the last three years. The warning signs I had ignored. Sarah’s sudden need for “space.” The way she guarded her phone. The late nights “at her mom’s.” The way she criticized my job, my hands, my clothes.
She had made me feel small so she could feel big. She had made me feel like I was failing her, so she wouldn’t have to feel guilty for failing me.
A heavy knock at the front door startled me.
My heart jumped. Had they come back? Did Julian bring friends?
I stood up, gripping the heavy spray bottle like a weapon. I walked to the door and looked through the peephole.
It wasn’t Sarah. It wasn’t Julian.
It was a woman I didn’t know. She was tall, wearing a sharp beige blazer and dark sunglasses, even though the sun was setting. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun. She looked like she cost money.
I opened the door.
She took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were red, puffy, and rimmed with smeared mascara. She looked like she had been crying for an hour, but her jaw was set in stone.
“Are you Mark?” she asked. Her voice was shaky but commanded authority.
“I am,” I said.
“I’m Vanessa,” she said. “Julian’s fiancée.”
I stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come in.”
She walked into my modest living room, her heels clicking on the hardwood. She looked around, her eyes landing on the spot where Sarah had faked her collapse. She shuddered slightly.
“I saw the video,” she said, not looking at me. “My sister sent it to me. Ten minutes ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. And I meant it. I knew the pain she was feeling because I was feeling it too. “I didn’t know how else to—”
“Don’t apologize,” she cut me off, turning to face me. “You did me a favor. We were supposed to send out the save-the-dates next week. The venue deposit was due tomorrow. Twenty grand.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “You just saved me twenty grand and a lifetime of misery.”
“Can I get you some water?” I asked.
She shook her head. She reached into her Prada bag and pulled out a manila envelope.
“I came here because I recognized the bedroom,” she said. “Julian showed me pictures of a ‘fixer-upper’ he was thinking of buying to flip. He showed me the layout. He said the owners were desperate to sell.”
My blood ran cold. “He told you he was buying my house?”
“He told me he had an inside track,” Vanessa said. “He said the wife was… cooperative. And that the husband was ‘out of the picture.’”
She handed me the envelope.
“I work at the hospital, Mark,” she said softly. “I’m a sonographer. Ultrasound tech. Julian knows that. He knows everyone in the department.”
I took the envelope. “What is this?”
“Julian is stupid,” she said. “He’s arrogant, and that makes him sloppy. He left his iPad unlocked on the counter this morning. I saw texts. Between him and Sarah.”
I didn’t want to look, but I had to.
“But that’s not why I’m here,” Vanessa continued, her voice trembling. “I’m here because of the baby.”
The world stopped.
“What about the baby?” I whispered.
“In the video… Sarah mentioned a specific medication. The compounded anti-nausea meds from West Creek Pharmacy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She said she needed them.”
Vanessa looked me dead in the eyes. “Mark… Dr. Evans is the only OBGYN in town who prescribes that specific compound. I work with him. I handle his files.”
She pointed to the envelope in my hand.
“Open it.”
I opened the clasp. Inside was a single sheet of paper. A printout of a patient record.
Patient: Sarah Jenkins. Date of Visit: Yesterday.
I scanned the notes. Blood pressure normal. Fetal heart rate normal.
And then, down at the bottom, under Notes/Prescriptions:
Patient requested Zofran. Prescription denied due to lack of symptoms. Patient reports feeling “excellent.” No history of severe morning sickness or nausea in the third trimester.
“She wasn’t sick,” Vanessa said. “Not even a little bit. But that’s not the worst part.”
She reached out and tapped a line of text at the very top of the page. The Estimated Due Date.
EDD: October 14th.
“October 14th,” I read aloud. “Yeah, that’s… that’s about right. Eight months along.”
“Mark,” Vanessa said gently. “Look at the conception date.”
I looked. Conception Date (Est): January 20th.
I did the math in my head. January.
I looked up at Vanessa. My knees felt weak again.
“I was deployed in January,” I whispered.
I was a reservist mechanic. I had been sent to Germany for training for three weeks in January. I left January 10th. I came back February 1st.
“I wasn’t here,” I said, the room spinning. “I wasn’t even in the country.”
“She lied about the due date,” Vanessa said. “She pushed it back by two weeks in the telling, but the ultrasound doesn’t lie. That baby was conceived when you were gone.”
I collapsed onto the sofa. The same sofa where I had held Sarah just an hour ago, thinking she was dying.
It wasn’t just an affair. It wasn’t just a betrayal.
The baby—the son I had named, the son I had built a crib for, the son I had worked double shifts to provide for—wasn’t mine.
He was Julian’s.
And they knew. They both knew.
“The texts I saw on Julian’s iPad,” Vanessa said, sitting down next to me, keeping a respectful distance. “They weren’t just about sex. They were planning this. They were waiting for the baby to be born. Sarah was going to put your name on the birth certificate so you’d be on the hook for child support, then divorce you a month later. They wanted you to pay for their kid while they moved to Aspen.”
Rage is a funny thing. At a certain point, it burns so hot it turns cold. It turns into ice.
I looked at the paper. I looked at the evidence of the plot to ruin my life, to enslave me financially to another man’s child.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked Vanessa. “You could have just walked away.”
Vanessa stood up. She wiped a stray tear from her cheek.
“Because Julian used my credit card to pay for the rental car he booked for their getaway,” she said. “And because nobody deserves to raise a snake’s child thinking it’s their own.”
She walked to the door.
“I’m going to the police,” she said. “Because what he did with my finances is fraud. And Mark?”
I looked up.
“You should call a lawyer. A shark. I know a good one. He hates Julian.”
She left a business card on the entry table and walked out.
I sat there in the silence of the evening. The house was dark now. The only light came from my phone screen, which was still lighting up every second with notifications.
The video had 50,000 views.
I picked up the phone. I didn’t look at the comments.
I dialed the number on the business card Vanessa had left.
It was 8:00 PM on a Sunday, but the card said 24/7 Emergency Litigation.
A man answered on the second ring. Voice like gravel.
“This is Saul.”
“Saul,” I said. “My name is Mark. I have a video that’s going viral right now. And I have proof of paternity fraud. And I want to destroy a man named Julian Banks.”
There was a pause on the line. Then, I heard the sound of a lighter flicking, followed by a long exhale.
“Mark,” Saul said. “I’ve been watching your video for the last twenty minutes eating my popcorn. I was hoping you’d call. Let’s get to work.”
CHAPTER 4: THE QUIET AFTER THE STORM
They say the internet has the attention span of a goldfish. That’s a lie. The internet has the memory of an elephant and the temperament of a swarm of wasps.
By Monday morning, the video had crossed a million views.
By Tuesday, the review section of “Banks Realty” had been so bombarded with one-star ratings and pictures of snakes that Google had to lock the page.
By Wednesday, Julian had been placed on “indefinite administrative leave” by his corporate office. It turns out, high-end real estate clients don’t like trusting their house keys to a man who climbs through windows to sleep with married women.
But I wasn’t watching the view count anymore. I was sitting in a conference room with glass walls, watching Saul work.
Saul was exactly as advertised. He wore a suit that looked like it had been slept in, and he smelled faintly of cigar smoke and peppermint, but when he opened his mouth, he was a surgeon.
Across the table sat Sarah and Julian.
They looked… diminished.
Julian wasn’t wearing his leather jacket. He was in a stiff suit, looking pale, his leg bouncing nervously under the table. He refused to look at me.
Sarah looked worse. The glow was gone. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. She kept looking at me, her eyes pleading, searching for the man who used to rub her feet after a long shift.
That man wasn’t in the room.
“So,” Saul said, dropping a thick stack of papers onto the mahogany table. The thud made everyone flinch except me. “Here is the situation. My client has filed for an immediate divorce based on adultery, fraud, and emotional distress. We are also filing a civil suit against Mr. Banks for alienation of affection—yes, that’s still a law in this state—and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
“This is ridiculous,” Julian’s lawyer, a young guy who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, stammered. “My client—”
“Your client,” Saul interrupted, pointing a pen at Julian without looking at him, “is currently being investigated for misuse of corporate funds. Those roses? The hotel bookings? The dinner receipts? All charged to the company. I’ve already forwarded the evidence to the state licensing board. Julian isn’t just losing this lawsuit; he’s losing his career.”
Julian’s head snapped up. “You did what?”
“And as for you, Mrs. Jenkins,” Saul turned his gaze to Sarah. She shrank back. “We have the affidavit from Vanessa, the ultrasound technician. We know the conception dates. We know you falsified the timeline to entrap my client into paternity fraud.”
Saul slid a single piece of paper across the table.
“This is a court-ordered DNA test request. But we all know what it’s going to say, don’t we?”
Sarah started to cry. It wasn’t the pretty, cinematic crying she used to do to get her way. It was ugly, heaving sobs.
“Mark,” she choked out. “Mark, please. I’m scared. I have nowhere to go. My parents… they saw the video. They told me not to come home.”
I looked at her. Really looked at her.
For years, I thought she was out of my league. I thought I was lucky just to be in her orbit. I worked myself to the bone trying to prove I was worthy of her.
But sitting there, watching her crumble because her safety net had been slashed, I realized something. She wasn’t a prize. She was a liability.
“You have Julian,” I said calmly. “He’s rich. He has a condo. He can take care of you.”
I looked at Julian. “Right, Julian? You wanted her. You climbed through a window for her. She’s all yours.”
Julian looked at Sarah, then at me. The look on his face wasn’t love. It was revulsion. He saw her now not as a conquest, but as an anchor dragging him down to the bottom of the ocean.
“I… I can’t,” Julian muttered. “With the investigation… my assets are frozen. The condo is in the firm’s name. I’m staying on a friend’s couch.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Sarah gasped, turning to Julian. “But… you promised. You said we’d go to Aspen.”
“There is no Aspen, Sarah!” Julian snapped, his facade finally cracking completely. “There’s no Aspen! I’m fired! I’m broke! I’m done!”
He put his head in his hands.
I stood up. I felt lighter than I had in years.
“Saul,” I said. “Finish it.”
I walked out of the conference room. I didn’t look back.
Two months later.
The moving truck was idling in the driveway.
The house on Oakwood Drive was empty. The echo inside was hollow, amplifying the sound of my boots on the hardwood.
I had sold it. It went fast—partly because the market was hot, and partly because the “Viral Cheating Video House” had become a weird local tourist attraction. I didn’t care. I just wanted out.
I had packed my life into twenty boxes. My tools. My clothes. The few pictures that didn’t have her in them.
I did a final walkthrough. The living room where she faked the seizure. The kitchen where I forgot my wallet. The bedroom.
The window was repaired. The screen was replaced. You couldn’t tell anything had happened here.
I walked out the front door and locked it for the last time.
As I turned to head to my truck, a beat-up Honda Civic pulled up to the curb.
It was Sarah.
She got out. She looked tired. deeply, deeply tired. She was nine months pregnant now, ready to pop any day. She was wearing sweatpants and one of my old oversized hoodies—one I must have missed when I packed.
She waddled up the driveway. She didn’t look like the woman who wanted to eat at places with no prices on the menu. She looked like a woman who knew exactly how much a gallon of milk cost.
“Mark,” she said. Her voice was small.
“Sarah,” I nodded, keeping my hands in my pockets.
“You sold the house.”
“I did.”
“Where are you going?”
“Montana,” I said. “My cousin has a ranch out there. Needs a mechanic for the tractors. It’s quiet. Mountains. Real mountains, not Aspen.”
She flinched at the word.
She looked at the moving truck, then back at me. Tears welled up in her eyes again.
“I made a mistake, Mark,” she whispered. “A terrible mistake. Julian… he’s gone. He moved back in with his mother in Florida. He blocked my number. He’s sending me $200 a month. That’s it.”
She took a step closer.
“I’m scared,” she said. “I’m having this baby alone. And… and I miss you. I miss us. I miss feeling safe. You always made me feel safe.”
She reached out, trying to touch my arm.
I didn’t step back. I just didn’t react. Her touch, which used to send electricity through me, felt like nothing. Just a ghost passing through a wall.
“I was safe, Sarah,” I said softly. “But I was also boring, right? I smelled like grease. I was simple.”
“I didn’t mean it,” she sobbed. “I was stupid. Please. Can we just… can we try? I can fix this. I can be the wife you wanted.”
I looked at her belly. The child inside that wasn’t mine. The child that would grow up with Julian’s eyes and Sarah’s manipulation.
I reached into my pocket.
I pulled out the velvet box I had kept for two months.
Sarah’s eyes lit up. Hope—desperate, clawing hope—flashed across her face. She thought I was going to propose again. She thought I was going to save her.
I opened the box.
Inside wasn’t a ring. It was the charm I had bought for our anniversary. The little silver wrench. $150.
“I was going to give you this,” I said. “Because I thought I fixed things. That was my job. I fixed cars, I fixed the house, I tried to fix you.”
I closed the box and handed it to her.
“But some things,” I said, looking her in the eye, “are totalled. You don’t fix them. You scrap them for parts and you move on.”
She stared at the box in her hand, the realization crashing down on her.
“Mark, please…”
“Goodbye, Sarah,” I said.
I walked past her. I climbed into the cab of my F-150. It rumbled to life—a sound I used to think was just noise, but now sounded like freedom.
I didn’t look in the rearview mirror as I pulled away. I knew what was there. A woman standing in the driveway of a house she used to own, holding a cheap silver wrench, watching the only man who ever truly loved her drive away forever.
I hit the main road and turned West.
I rolled down the window. The air smelled like autumn leaves and gasoline.
It smelled like clean laundry.
It smelled like my life, finally, was my own.
THE END.
