“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “He wanted to leave me with nothing. He wanted to start his new family with his grandmother’s fortune while I struggled to pay rent.”

“He’s a monster,” Rachel said, pulling her coat tighter around her.

“He’s about to learn how expensive his greed really is,” I said.

My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

I pulled it out and stared at the screen.

A text message from Scott.

“Have you looked at the papers yet?” it read. “Let’s get this over with, Avery. I don’t want to make this harder on you than it already is.”

I showed the screen to Rachel.

She looked at me, her eyes narrowing.

“Here we go,” she whispered.

I unlocked the phone, my fingers trembling slightly as I began to type my response.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to us,” I wrote back. “Please, Scott. Can we just talk?”

I pressed send.

Almost immediately, three gray dots appeared on the screen as he began to reply.

I watched the screen, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Then, the dots disappeared, and a notification popped up.