The world went silent.
Baby.
Lydia was pregnant.
My best friend was pregnant with my husband’s child.
The same Lydia who, two weeks earlier, had come over for chilaquiles, hugged me, and asked if Mark and I were trying to have kids. The same one who told me, “Don’t wait too long, Audrey, you were born to be a mom.”
I leaned on the counter because my legs were shaking.
Mark kept talking as if he were planning a vacation.
“We’ll go to Nashville or Tampa for a while. We’ll buy a house under someone else’s name. Then, once the divorce is finalized, everything will fall into place.”
“What if your father-in-law suspects something?” Lydia asked.
Mark laughed.
“Thomas is old. After his heart a:tta:ck, he got more sentimental. He thinks I’m the son he never had.”
That’s when something inside me changed.
My father wasn’t weak. He was tired, yes. He had worked his whole life building a construction company from nothing, starting with a borrowed truck and ending with offices in three states. He had survived a heart at:tack, betrayals from partners, and the d:eat:h of my mother.
But Mark thought he could use him.
Worse, he thought he could use me.
I didn’t hang up. I kept listening, my heart turning to stone.
They talked about documents, a pending signature, a meeting on Monday in the Uptown district. Mark said I just had to sign “as a family formality.” He never told me that signature could give him temporary control over part of the trust my mother left me.
When the call ended, the silence in my kitchen felt unbearable.
I bent down, picked up the can from the floor, and saw my distorted reflection in the metal.
Then I called my father.
He answered in his usual calm voice.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
I took a deep breath.
“Dad… I need you to ruin Mark’s life.”
There was a pause.
Then my father said:
“Send me everything. And don’t tell him anything yet.”
That night, when Mark came home with flowers and kissed my forehead like nothing had happened, I already knew what was coming had no way back.
And the worst part… I still hadn’t heard the dirtiest part of his plan.
I couldn’t believe what was about to happen…
