"If your husband found another woman, maybe you should ask yourself what you stopped doing as a wife."

I leaned back in the armchair, holding the phone firmly against my ear, while Garrett watched me with quiet curiosity.

"What are you talking about, Christopher?" I asked cold-headedly.

"Brenda... the woman from my office," Christopher admitted, his voice cracking with embarrassment and desperation. "It was all a setup, Rebecca. She wasn't interested in me. She was working with a rival distributor to steal ApexBio’s client database through my corporate credentials. She used me to access the server, copied the files, and then turned around and filed a corporate harassment lawsuit against me to cover her tracks!"

I sat completely still, listening to the poetic justice unfolding three thousand miles away.

"The board terminated my contract yesterday," Christopher continued, sounding on the verge of tears. "They stripped my stock options, and the firm is suing me for gross negligence. I lost my job, Rebecca. I lost my income. And... and my mother's medical insurance was tied to my executive package."

I let out a slow, quiet breath. "That is terrible news, Christopher. But I fail to see what any of this has to do with me."

"My mother is sick, Rebecca!" Christopher pleaded frantically. "Her heart condition flared up three days ago. The private clinic in San Diego is demanding a twenty-thousand-dollar deposit for her treatment because my insurance was canceled! I don't have the cash. The bank froze my personal accounts because of the lawsuit!"

In the background of the call, I heard a familiar, shrill voice wheezing into a breathing mask. It was Florence.

"Is that Rebecca?!" Florence’s voice gasped out faintly in the background. "Christopher, don't beg that woman! She left us! She abandoned this family!"

Christopher ignored his mother and spoke directly into the phone. "Rebecca, please... I know I hurt you. I know I made a horrific mistake. But my mother needs help. You always cared for her. You ran our house for years. Can you please lend us twenty thousand dollars? Just until I figure things out?"

A cold, bitter laugh escaped my throat before I could stop it.

"Lend you twenty thousand dollars?" I said, my voice cutting through the speaker like shattered glass. "Christopher, when I caught you cheating, your mother stood in our living room and told me that a wife who gets replaced deserves what she gets. She told me I would realize how expensive it is to survive once I was alone."

"She was wrong! She was angry!" Christopher begged. "Please, Rebecca, you were always so kind—"

"I was dutiful, Christopher," I corrected him sharply. "I was loyal to a husband who treated me like an unpaid housekeeper and a mother-in-law who treated me like a servant. I spent twelve years taking care of your family while you built your career, and the second I became inconvenient, you tossed me into the trash."

"Rebecca, please—"

"I am currently earning thirty-five thousand dollars a month as a private medical specialist in Atlanta," I declared, letting every single word land with absolute weight. "I have a new life, a new purpose, and a employer who respects me. I will not give you or your mother a single cent of my hard-earned money to bail you out of a mess you created with your own greed."

"Rebecca, wait—!"

"Goodbye, Christopher," I said cleanly. "I hope you and your mother learn how expensive it is to survive."

I pressed the red button, ending the call, and blocked his number permanently.

I set the phone down on the glass table. My hands were completely steady. The lingering weight of twelve years of self-doubt, pain, and humiliation seemed to evaporate into the air around me.