Chapter 5 - The SignatureThe silence in the booth was heavy enough to crush bone.
Diego stared at the pen. His fingers twitched, hovering over the heavy black plastic barrel like a drowning man grasping at a straw. He looked across the table at Brenda, whose face was twisted in sheer, unadulterated panic, her hands instinctively clutching her stomach as if she expected the FBI to burst through the steakhouse doors at any second.
"Diego, don't you dare," Brenda hissed, her voice vibrating with suppressed fury. "She's bluffing! A court would never—"
"Shut up, Brenda!" Diego snapped, spinning around to face her with a sudden, vicious snarl that made her shrink back against the leather booth. The illusion of their cozy, triumphant little romance was fracturing right down the middle, splintering under the weight of real consequence.
Diego looked back at me. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with the frantic desperation of a cornered animal.
"You're a cold bitch, Elena," he spat, his voice shaking with impotent rage. "Seven years... I gave you seven years of my life, and you're going to destroy everything over a mistake?"
"A mistake?" I let out a low, cold laugh that sent a shiver down his spine. "A mistake is forgetting to salt the birria, Diego. Forging my signature to steal my livelihood, drain my accounts, and use my six-year-old daughter as a legal pawn while you celebrate your mistress's pregnancy? That’s not a mistake. That’s a predator getting caught in his own trap."
I tapped a manicured fingernail against the edge of the document.
"Clock's ticking, husband. Page fourteen. Sign your name on the dotted line, initial every addendum, and write your initials beside the asset waiver. Do it now, or I walk out that door, and the only papers you'll be signing next will be handed to you by a federal marshal in an orange jumpsuit."
Diego's hand shook so violently he dropped the pen twice before managing to grip it between his sweaty fingers.
With a look of sheer defeat etched deep into every line of his face, he dragged the tip of the pen across the paper. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Signature after signature. Initial after initial. Every stroke of ink tore another piece of his stolen empire away, stripping him bare of the very wealth he had schemed to steal.
When he finished, he threw the pen across the table, letting it clatter against my water glass.
"There," he choked out, his voice hollow. "Are you happy now? You ruined everything. You destroyed us."
"Us?" I picked up the folder, carefully inspecting every signature, every initial, ensuring every legal cross was dotted and every t crossed with absolute precision. I closed the folder with a satisfying snap and slid it back into my leather bag. "There was never an 'us,' Diego. You just forgot that the woman who helped you build your foundation was also smart enough to tear it down."
I slid out of the booth, smoothing down the front of my emerald maternity dress. I looked down at Brenda, who was glaring at me with eyes full of pure, helpless poison.
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"Congratulations on the boy, Brenda," I said with a sweet, saccharine smile. "You're going to need a lot of child support. Too bad the father is officially broke."
Without waiting for a reply, I turned and walked out of the steakhouse, leaving them sitting in the wreckage of their own avarice.
