The minute the baby was born, she filed for hard child support. Maxed it out. Garnishment. No mercy. The salary of a regional delivery driver does not stretch far when one family becomes two and both hate you.
Then came Meline.
The divorce was surgical.
Colleen used the binder like a blade. Financial infidelity. Marital waste. Fraud through the joint LLC. Hidden apartment. Stolen funds. The judge had enough.
Garrett got nothing.
No house. No savings. No leverage. He was ordered to repay what he stole. By the time the numbers were final, he was broke and living in an extended-stay motel near the highway.
Eleanor went next.
Because Meline had proof Eleanor used her loyalty account to buy goods with stolen business money, the civil fraud suit landed hard. Eleanor settled fast to avoid criminal exposure. It still stripped her clean. She sold her house to cover the damage and ended up in a rental apartment with bad light and worse company.
Valerie’s wedding never happened.
The bank clawed back the final $4,000 transfer the second the fraud investigation started. Accounts froze. The resort cut them off. Her wealthy fiancé took one look at the scandal and left the island alone.
By winter, Valerie was working retail and pretending not to know why nobody called her anymore.
Meline was done with all of them.
At home, in the nursery of the house she had kept, she sat in a rocking chair with her newborn son asleep on her chest. His name was Leo. He was warm and safe and real. Colleen sat nearby with coffee and her feet tucked under her like she planned to stay for the long haul.
There was no tension in that room. No hidden account. No affair. No fake prayers. No mother-in-law buying furniture with stolen money.
Only safety.
