Chapter 4 - Twenty-Eight Thousand Dollars
I didn't open the door.
Liam knocked.
Then knocked harder.
"Emma!"
Sophie stood several feet behind him.
My mother came downstairs carrying Hailey.
"Who's there?"
"Liam."
Mom's expression hardened.
"Don't let him in."
I wasn't planning to.
"Liam," I called through the door. "Leave."
"I need my things."
"I'll arrange a time."
"This is my house too."
"No, it isn't."
Silence.
Then Sophie spoke.
"Tell her about the money."
Liam spun around.
"Shut up."
That was when I understood Sophie hadn't come as his ally.
She had come because she was afraid of him too.
I opened the door but kept the security chain attached.
"What money?"
Liam stared at me.
"I don't know what she's talking about."
"Twenty-eight thousand dollars."
His face answered before his mouth did.
"Emma—"
"Where is it?"
"Investments."
"What investments?"
"Something for our future."
"Our future?"
I almost laughed.
"The future where you divorce me and marry Sophie?"
Sophie flinched.
"I never asked him to steal from you."
Liam turned.
"Would you stop talking?"
She stepped backward.
I looked at her.
"Why did you come here?"
Sophie reached into her purse.
Liam moved toward her.
"Don't."
She pulled out a flash drive.
"I copied this from his laptop."
Liam lunged.
I slammed the door and locked it.
Through the window, I saw Sophie retreat toward the sidewalk.
Liam shouted at her.
My mother called the police.
By the time officers arrived, Liam had left.
Sophie remained.
She handed me the flash drive.
"I think you need this."
"What is it?"
"Everything."
That night, Caroline and I opened the files together over video call.
There were spreadsheets.
Bank statements.
Emails.
And a folder labeled PROJECT H.
Inside were documents Liam had apparently prepared for a divorce.
He had calculated our assets.
My inheritance.
Our savings.
Even estimated child-support payments.
But one document made Caroline stop speaking.
A draft loan agreement.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
Except I had never signed it.
"What is this?" I whispered.
Caroline leaned toward her screen.
"Emma, don't touch anything. Preserve every file exactly as it is."
The document supposedly authorized a $75,000 loan against an investment account associated with my grandmother's trust.
My signature looked convincing.
Almost perfect.
But it wasn't mine.
Liam hadn't merely been planning to leave me.
He had been planning financially for months.
The next morning, Caroline helped me freeze access to everything Liam could reach.
Then she filed the first paperwork.
I thought Liam would panic.
Instead, he became charming.
Flowers arrived.
Then a handwritten letter.
Then photographs from our wedding.
Remember us.
I threw nothing away.
Caroline told me to save everything.
Then came the voicemail.
"Emma, I'm sorry. I was scared. Becoming a father messed with my head. Sophie manipulated me."
I forwarded it to Caroline.
An hour later Sophie texted me.
He told me you trapped him with the pregnancy.
That sentence almost made me throw my phone.
Hailey had been planned.
For a year.
Liam had cried when the pregnancy test turned positive.
He had painted the nursery.
He had chosen her middle name.
Now he was rewriting history.
But Liam made one mistake.
He assumed Sophie and I would hate each other too much to compare stories.
We did compare them.
And the lies multiplied.
He told Sophie we hadn't shared a bedroom in a year.
False.
He told her our marriage was effectively over before they met.
False.
He told her Hailey might not be his.
False.
He told me Sophie had pursued him.
According to Sophie, he had pursued her.
Then Sophie showed me something else.
A message Liam had sent her four months earlier.
Once the baby comes, I'll wait a little while. Then I'll leave. I just need to make sure Emma doesn't walk away with everything.
My hands shook.
I stared at those words.
The affair hurt.
But this was different.
This was planning.
Calculation.
Betrayal with a spreadsheet.
Caroline filed for divorce the next morning.
Liam was served at work.
At 3:08 p.m., he called.
I didn't answer.
At 3:10, he called again.
At 3:12, another call.
Then a text.
You want war? Fine.
I showed Caroline.
She replied immediately.
Do not respond.
That evening, someone knocked.
My father checked the camera.
It wasn't Liam.
It was Robert.
Liam's father.
He stood on my porch holding a thick envelope.
When I opened the door, he looked twenty years older than he had at our anniversary dinner.
"I owe you an apology."
"You didn't do anything."
He shook his head.
"I think I did."
He handed me the envelope.
"I found these in Liam's old office at our house."
I opened it.
Inside were bank statements.
Receipts.
And paperwork dating back nearly a year.
Robert's voice cracked.
"I think my son has been lying to all of us much longer than anyone realizes."
At the bottom of the stack was a document with my name on it.
May you like
And when I read the first line, my knees nearly gave out.
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