Chapter 9 - The FalloutThree weeks later, the divorce papers were signed, sealed, and filed.
Ryan didn't fight me on a single thing. He handed over the deed to the house, signed away all rights to our shared assets, and moved into a small, sterile apartment across town. I hadn't spoken to him once since the night in the kitchen.
As for Emily, she had discharged from the hospital a week after giving birth. She tried calling me dozens of times—voicemails, text messages, long handwritten letters shoved into my mailbox.
I deleted every voicemail without listening to them. I burned the letters without reading them.
My sister was dead to me.
And Ryan was a ghost I used to know.
I thought I would feel relief once the dust settled. I thought cutting them out of my life like a cancerous tumor would bring me peace.
Instead, I found myself sitting on the front porch of my empty house every evening as the sun went down, staring out at the quiet street, feeling entirely hollow.
Until the knock came.
It was a Tuesday afternoon. A sharp, rapping sound at my front door that made me jump.
I frowned, walking slowly down the hallway and pulling the door open.
Standing on my porch wasn't Ryan. And it wasn't Emily.
It was a woman I recognized instantly from the neighborhood association meetings. Sarah Sterling. Mark’s wife.
She looked terrible. Her eyes were swollen, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, clutching a large brown envelope against her chest like a shield.
"Sarah?" I said, my voice catching in my throat. "What are you doing here?"
Sarah looked up at me, her expression a mix of fury, humiliation, and deep, aching sorrow.
"I know everything, Beth," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Mark confessed. He confessed to everything."
My grip on the doorknob tightened. "What are you talking about?"
"About the affair with your sister," Sarah said, a bitter, broken laugh escaping her lips. "About the baby. And about the payoff."
She held out the brown envelope toward me, her hands shaking violently.
"Mark came home yesterday and told me that Ryan paid him forty-five thousand dollars to walk away from Emily and the baby," Sarah continued, tears spilling over her lower lashes. "He thought he was being smart. He thought he could buy his way out of a scandal. But he didn't realize... he didn't realize that the money he used to pay my husband off wasn't his."
I stared at her, a cold dread pooling in my stomach. "What do you mean?"
"It wasn't Ryan’s savings, Beth," Sarah said, her voice dropping to a horrifying whisper. "Mark showed me the bank transfer records. The account number wasn't Ryan's personal account."
May you like
She thrust the envelope into my hands.
"It was your joint business account with your father's estate."
