“The will?” I repeated, my mind reeling. “What about it?”
David sat at the kitchen table and gestured for me to sit across from him.
“I’m updating it,” he said. “Today.”
“Why?” I asked. “It was fine six months ago.”
He laced his fingers together on the table.
“Things have changed. I’m rewriting the terms. Jacob will be cared for. But only as long as you remain… cooperative.”
I stared at him in horror.
“You’re using our son as leverage?”
“I’m being practical,” he said. “If you behave, you stay here. You live comfortably. You raise Jacob. If you cause trouble… you leave. Without him. And without a penny.”
I stood up, my hands shaking.
“You can’t do that. We’re equal partners. Half of everything is mine.”
David smiled.
“Is it?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded paper. Slid it across the table toward me.
I picked it up. Scanned the lines.
My heart stopped.
It was a marriage contract amendment. Dated three months ago.
Signed by me.
Except… I had never seen it before. And that was not my signature.
“You forged my signature?” I whispered.
David leaned back in his chair.
“With this,” he said, “I control everything. The house. The accounts. The business. Everything.”
I gripped the edge of the table to keep from collapsing.
“Why?” I asked again. “Why are you doing this?”
He stood up and walked around the table until he was standing right behind me.
“Because,” he murmured into my ear, “it was never just yours. Or even just mine. There are other people with claims. People who have been waiting a very long time.”
“Who?” I demanded, spinning around.
David didn’t answer.
He just looked past me, toward the hallway.
And I realized, with a sickening lurch of my stomach, that Maria had been standing there the whole time.
Listening.
And then she spoke.
“Tell her, David. There’s no point hiding it anymore.”
David stiffened.
Then he turned to me, his face like stone.
“Maria,” he said, “is not just my employee.”
He paused for a long, terrible moment.
“She is my wife.”
