“How did she get a protection order so fast?” I asked, my voice trembling. “It takes days to get those. We don’t even have a lawyer.”

Leo turned his head slowly, looking out the rain-streaked window.

The gray light cast a cold shadow across his face.

“She has money,” he said.

“But we had five thousand dollars saved in our joint account,” I said, a sudden panic rising in my throat. “The money we saved for a deposit on our own apartment.”

“It’s gone, Grace,” Leo said.

He finally looked at me, and the defeat in his eyes broke my heart.

“I checked the mobile app while you were sleeping earlier. The balance is zero.”

“But how?” I asked. “Your name was on that account.”

“Melanie’s name was on it too,” Leo said, his voice flat. “Our mother made us set it up that way years ago, when we first started working.”

He walked over to the crib and gently touched Sam’s tiny blanket.

“Melanie cleared it out yesterday morning.”

My hands began to shake so badly I had to tuck them under my thighs.