My phone vibrated.
Andrew.
“Laura,” he whispered, “Brenda finally admitted why she’s desperate. She owes more than two hundred thousand dollars to private lenders and gambling-related debts.”
He paused.
“And Mark signed as co-guarantor.”
I closed my eyes.
My husband was trying to risk the home my father helped me buy so he could rescue his mistress from her debts.
Then Andrew added something worse.
“Brenda says Ofelia received part of the money too.”
Standing in that hallway, I finally understood that this was no longer about a broken marriage.
It was a coordinated attempt to strip away everything I had spent nearly three decades building.
And I knew exactly how I was going to stop them.
I didn’t confront Mark that day.
I didn’t confront Ofelia either.
Instead, I met Stephen Vance, a senior corporate attorney who had represented my father years earlier.
I placed everything in front of him.
