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The leather seats of Molly’s Subaru were warm, but the ice inside my bones wouldn’t thaw. Ivy slept soundly against my chest, her tiny breaths soft and rhythmic, blissfully ignorant that her birth mother had just been evicted from her own empire by the man who had promised to love her until death do us part. / Chapter 6 / 8

Chapter 6 - The Pawn's Gambit

Two weeks passed.

The quiet of Molly’s house had given me time to heal. My body was recovering from the childbirth, and Ivy was growing stronger every day. The sale of the Redwood estate had cleared, placing eighty-five million dollars into a fresh, secure trust fund set up exclusively for Ivy.

I sat in a private conference room at the county detention center, separated from Brent by a thick panel of plexiglass.

He looked terrible. The confident, handsome real estate agent I had married was gone. His eyes were sunken, his skin was sallow, and he wore an orange jumpsuit that hung loosely off his shoulders.

"You came," he said softly, his voice echoing through the small speaker.

"I came to deliver these," I said, sliding a thick blue folder through the legal slot beneath the glass.

He looked down at the folder. "Divorce papers?"

"Divorce papers, sole custody agreements, and a total surrender of all claims to any marital property," I replied flatly. "Sign them, and my lawyers will advise the federal prosecutor to offer you a plea deal. Five years instead of twenty."

Brent’s hands shook as he opened the folder. "Five years... Tessa, I’ll lose everything. My career, my reputation... my youth."

"You lost all of that the moment you changed the door code, Brent."

He looked up at me, tears welling in his eyes. "I was stupid, okay? I was desperate! My mother... she kept pressing me. She told me I was nothing without you. She told me that everyone in town laughed at me behind my back, calling me 'Mr. Tessa Vance.' I just wanted to feel like I had control over something! I wanted to show her that I was the man of the house!"

"By locking out a mother and her baby?" I asked, my voice deadly soft. "By taking her money? That doesn't make you a man, Brent. That makes you a coward."

"I loved you, Tessa," he wept, pressing his hand against the glass. "Please... don't do this to Ivy. She needs a father."

"Ivy needs a mother who protects her from predators," I said, standing up from my chair and buttoning my coat. "And as long as I am breathing, you will never come within a mile of her."

He grabbed the pen, his knuckles white, and signed his name on the bottom of every page with shaking hands.

"It’s done," he whispered, pushing the folder back through the slot. "Are you happy now?"

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I picked up the folder, checking every signature with professional precision.

"I'm not happy, Brent," I said, turning my back on him. "I'm free."

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