W BOŻE NARODZENIE PRZYBYŁEM NA IMPREZĘ U TEŚCIÓW WCZEŚNIEJ NIŻ PLANOWAŁEM. BYŁEM W SZOKU, GDY

“I’ll fix it,” Jax tried to say, but his voice was weak.

“Fix it. How are you going to fix it? She’s filing for divorce. She already said she’s filing for divorce.”

“She has no proof. She can’t prove adultery.”

“She caught you in the condo with your pregnant mistress, you idiot. What clearer proof do you want?”

I heard Uncle Charles’s voice. Aunt Carol must have put him on speakerphone because his voice came through clearly.

“You are an idiot,” Uncle Charles said with a chilling calm that was worse than his wife’s screams. “A complete and utter fool. We trusted you. We gave you one single task. Marry her, earn her trust, make her sign the power of attorney, and you couldn’t even manage that.”

“I tried. She wouldn’t sign. But I’ll make her drop the divorce,” Jax insisted, desperation in his voice. “I’ll talk to her. I’ll apologize.”

“How?” Uncle Charles asked, still with that terrifying calm. “How are you going to make a woman who just caught you cheating drop the divorce? What arguments do you have?”

Silence.

“That’s what I thought,” Uncle Charles continued. “You have nothing. We’ve lost everything because of you.”

“We haven’t lost it yet,” Jax argued, but without conviction. “She’ll still have to give me half the assets in the divorce. Even with adultery, it’s divided.”

Aunt Carol let out a bitter laugh.

“You really are dumb. Those properties are her inheritance. They don’t enter into the split. She’s divorcing you. You’ll be left with nothing and a pregnant mistress to support on top of it. Congratulations, Jax. You managed to ruin everything.”

I saw Jax slump heavily onto the sofa, phone still to his ear, his face in his hands.

“Can you come here?” he asked in a weak voice. “We need to do something. We need a plan.”

“No,” Aunt Carol said flatly. “You got yourself into this mess alone. Now get yourself out of it alone. I’m fed up, Jax. Fed up with you. Fed up with this whole situation.”

And she hung up.

Jax sat there staring at the phone for almost five minutes. Madison tried to approach, but he pushed her away.

“You need to leave,” he told her coldly. “Madison, now. And don’t come back.”

“But Jax, I have nowhere to go.”

“That is not my problem now,” he shouted, standing up. “Go to your parents. Go wherever you want, but get out of here.”

I watched Madison start crying, hurriedly gathering her things, almost running out of the condo. Jax was left alone in the living room, pacing back and forth, picking up his phone, typing something, deleting it, typing again.

He was sending me messages. I saw the notifications pop up on my phone.

“Ava, please let me explain. It was a mistake, a moment of weakness. I felt lonely. You’ve been gone a lot. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Can we fix this, please?”

I deleted all the messages without responding. I turned off the cameras and leaned back in the car seat.

Phase one complete.

Now, all that was left was to wait for tomorrow.

The next morning, I woke up early. I had already asked Mr. Harrison to prepare everything for delivery that day. Promptly at eight a.m., two court officers split up. One went to the brownstone where Uncle Charles and Aunt Carol lived. The other went to my condo where Jax was.

I was in Mr. Harrison’s office when my phone rang. It was Aunt Carol. I answered.

“Ava,” she screamed. There was panic in her voice now. None of the contained rage from yesterday. Pure panic. “What is this? An eviction notice? You’re kicking us out?”

“Yes,” I replied simply.

“But why? What have we done? Try to talk this out. Ava, please. You can’t do this. We have nowhere to go. We’re old. We don’t have money for—”

“That is not my problem,” I cut her off, using the exact words Jax had used with Madison the day before.

“But this is because of what Jax did. We have nothing to do with that,” she almost laughed. “Nothing to do with it. Seriously?”

“Of course not. We are just as surprised as you are. That idiotic boy—”

“Aunt Carol,” I interrupted her, my voice turning cold. “I know everything. The trips that weren’t to Maui, the diverted rents, the plan you had since my parents’ death. I know everything.”

Absolute silence on the other end.

“So yes,” I continued. “You have thirty days to get out of my house, and I suggest you use that time to find a good lawyer because you’re going to need one.”

I hung up before she could respond.

Two minutes later, my phone rang again. Jax.

I answered.

“Ava, is this serious?” he asked, and there was something different in his voice. Fear.

“Divorce. Misappropriation. Theft. You’re suing me?”

“Yes.”

“But why those accusations? You don’t have proof of all that, do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What proof? How?”

“Security cameras throughout the condo, Jax, with audio, installed days ago. I have the recording of you with Madison. I have the recording of the meeting in the kitchen where you all confess the entire plan. I have documents proving the diversion of money, the fake trips, everything.”

Silence.

“You recorded us?” he finally managed to say.

“I recorded you, and I’ve handed it all over to law enforcement.”

“But that’s illegal. You can’t record people without their consent.”

“Yes, I can. In my own condo, with my own security cameras, it’s perfectly legal.”

I heard him breathe heavily on the other end.

“How much do you want?” he finally asked. “How much do you want to forget everything, to drop the lawsuits? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? How much?”

This time I genuinely laughed.

“Jax, do you really think I want money? I have money. What I want is justice and my assets back.”

“Your assets were never not yours.”

“No. And the two hundred eighty thousand dollars you diverted from the rents over five years. And my jewelry you stole and gave to your mistress. And the years of lies.”

“I’ll give it all back to you with interest. Just drop the lawsuits.”

“No. You have nowhere to sleep. How do you think you’re going to give it back to me with interest?”

“Ava, please. This will destroy me. It will destroy my parents. All of us.”

“You should have thought about that before.”

“Are you doing this for revenge because I cheated on you? I already apologized.”

“No, Jax. I’m doing this because you spent over a decade planning a scam against me. Because you exploited my parents’ death. You exploited my vulnerability, my trust. Because you are exactly the kind of person who deserves to pay for their crimes.”

“Crimes? I just made bad decisions with our money. It’s the risk of the business.”

“You diverted money. You falsified contracts. You stole jewelry. You committed fraud. Those are felonies, Jax. And you will answer for them.”

I heard him start to cry on the other end. Not that manipulative crying he would probably use if we were face to face. It was a cry of genuine desperation.

“Please,” he begged. “I’m going to lose everything. I’ll have nothing.”

“Welcome to the club,” I replied coldly. “You were going to leave me with nothing, too. The difference is that I was smarter and discovered it first.”

I heard him swallow on the other end.

“My parents,” he began, but his voice failed him. “My parents are going to kill me. They’re going to kill me for letting this happen.”

“That is not my problem.”

“Don’t you understand?” His voice became desperate. “They’re going to blame me for everything. They’ll say I messed up their plan, that I was stupid, careless.”

“And weren’t you?” I cut him off. “You were stupid and careless. You let yourself get caught with your mistress.”

“I didn’t know you would come back early.”

“I’m not just talking about that day, Jax. I’m also talking about Christmas Eve when you announced Madison’s pregnancy to the entire room. When your parents talked about finally getting the properties they believed they were entitled to. When everyone toasted the future.”

Absolute silence on the other end.

“You were there?” His voice was a thread.

“Yes. I also arrived early from the company party. I heard everything. I saw everything and I left before anyone noticed.”

“But you sent me a message later saying you were at the company party.”

“Because I needed time, Jax. Time to process, time to plan, time to gather evidence. You thought I would be eternally stupid, eternally grateful, eternally blind. And I let you believe it while I prepared.”

Another silence, longer, heavier.

“So since Christmas,” he murmured as if processing it. “You knew since Christmas. The trip to Japan, the cameras, it was all planned.”

“Yes, but you destroyed yourselves. I’m just making sure you pay the consequences.”

And I hung up.

I looked at Mr. Harrison, who had followed the entire conversation.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

I thought for a moment.

“Free,” I finally replied. “I feel free.”

He smiled.

“Your father would be proud.”

It took two months for everything to resolve. The divorce was fast because Jax had no way to fight. With all the evidence, his lawyer practically begged him to sign everything without opposing it.

“It’s the only way out,” I heard the guy say in the courthouse hallway.

I watched Jax sign the papers. His hand trembled so much the pen nearly fell. He couldn’t look me in the eye even once.

I left there officially divorced. Officially the owner of everything that was always mine.

The judgment for misappropriation came shortly after. Two hundred eighty thousand dollars to be repaid, aside from the jewelry. The judge determined a thirty percent wage garnishment. Only Jax had never had a real salary. He had never truly worked in his life.

“I suggest the defendant get a real job,” the prosecutor almost laughed.

And that’s what happened.

A few weeks later, Mr. Harrison told me that Jax had finally found a job—a server at a coffee shop in Queens. For the first time in his adult life, he was genuinely working, waking up early, wearing a uniform, serving customers, cleaning tables. The same guy who spent his days pretending to study charts in front of the computer, who lectured me about strategic investments, was now finally doing something productive.

Uncle Charles and Aunt Carol had thirty days to leave the brownstone. On the last day, I went to conduct the inspection with the court officer. I expected it to be messy. I did not expect complete vandalism.

Broken furniture, holes in the walls, spray-painted insults, shattered mirrors on the floor. They had destroyed everything they could before leaving.

Uncle Charles was waiting for me at the door, glaring.