A tiny, razor-sharp spark of genuine amusement ignited in my chest.
It wasn’t because the betrayal didn’t ache—it did, a dull, phantom pain. It was because the scattered, confusing puzzle pieces of the last six months suddenly snapped together to form a crystal-clear picture. The late nights he spent “auditing accounts at the office.” The sudden, defensive secrecy surrounding his phone. The new, heavy cedar cologne that masked the scent of another woman. The way Linda had abruptly stopped ending her phone calls to me with “love you, dear.”
They had planned this. They had calculated the exact extraction point.
I drew a slow, deliberate breath, tasting the absolute calm radiating from my core.
“Okay,” I said, allowing a genuine smile to touch my lips. “Then all of you should leave.”
The heavy, aggressive atmosphere in the kitchen violently snapped tight. The triumphant smirk instantly vanished from Brooke’s face. Linda’s practiced, polite sneer slipped, revealing pure confusion. Jason blinked rapidly, leaning backward slightly as if I had physically struck him.
“What… did you just say?” Jason whispered, the manufactured confidence draining from his face.
I leaned forward, placing my palms flat against the cool Carrera marble, and delivered the sentence again—quietly, articulating each syllable with the weight of a judge’s gavel.
“Leave,” I commanded. “Because this house… does not belong to you.”
Jason’s mouth dropped open, closed, and opened again. He resembled a suffocating fish hauled roughly onto the deck of a boat.
