The sound of tearing paper was loud in the quiet room.

He tore it again, his face twisted in a mask of triumph.

“It’s gone,” my father whispered, throwing the white scraps onto the table. “It’s all gone.”

“You just destroyed a legal document, Richard,” Arthur said.

He did not look worried.

He looked down at his buzzing phone.

My mother gasped, clutching her pearls with a trembling hand.

“Richard, what did you do?” she whimpered.

“I saved us,” my father said, breathing heavily. “Without the original, she has nothing.”

He looked at me, his eyes gleaming with a sick joy.

“You have no case, Ava,” he said. “You have no future.”

I did not move.

I did not cry.

I just watched the paper scraps settle on the polished wood.

The text on Arthur’s screen was still visible.

It read: *We are coming in.*

The heavy front door of our house suddenly burst open.

The sound of wood hitting the wall echoed through the hallway.

Heavy footsteps marched across the hardwood floor.

Four uniform police officers entered the dining room, followed by a detective in a plain suit.