Chapter 1 - The Splintered Chair
The chair hit my shoulder before I even understood what my mother-in-law was doing.
I crashed onto the garage floor, my keys skidding beneath my SUV. Pain shot through my arm as Patricia raised the wooden chair again.
“You are not taking that car!” I screamed.
She glared at me like I was the thief.
“My son needs it more than you do. Everything you have belongs to this family.”
Behind her, my husband, Ethan, leaned against the doorway and laughed.
Actually laughed.
For two years, I had transferred $8,000 every month into the household account because Ethan insisted his mother was struggling with the mortgage, insurance, utilities, and medical bills. I paid without missing a month. I bought my SUV with my own money before our marriage, and the title was only in my name.
But that evening, Patricia walked into the garage carrying my spare key.
She said Ethan had promised her the SUV.
When I grabbed the driver’s door and told her no, she swung the chair.
The second blow caught my forearm as I tried to protect my head.
“Mom, careful,” Ethan said, still smiling. “Don’t damage the car.”
I stared at him from the concrete.
“Are you serious?”
His smile disappeared.
“Give her the keys, Claire. You already make enough money. Stop acting selfish.”
Blood was running from a cut near my elbow. I could barely move my shoulder, but something inside me went cold.
I reached under the SUV, grabbed my keys, and stood.
Patricia stepped toward me again.
“If you leave, don’t come back.”
Ethan folded his arms. “And don’t expect to take anything from this house.”
I said nothing.
I got into the SUV, locked the doors, and drove straight to the emergency room.
The doctor found a badly bruised shoulder, a deep cut, and a hairline fracture in my left wrist. A nurse quietly asked how it happened.
This time, I told the truth.
Then I showed the police officer the video automatically uploaded from the garage security camera.
He watched Patricia swing the chair.
He watched Ethan laugh.
Then he watched something I had completely missed during the attack.
After I drove away, Ethan picked up Patricia’s phone and said, “Tomorrow morning, we sell the car before she can stop us.”
The officer paused the video.
“Ma’am,” he said, “do you know why they think they can legally sell your vehicle?”
My stomach dropped.
Because three days earlier, I had found a document in our home office with my signature on it.
May you like
A signature I had never written.
I thought the forged signature was the worst thing Ethan had hidden from me. I was wrong. By sunrise, police were at the house, Patricia was screaming in the driveway, and an investigator had uncovered what my $8,000 monthly payments had really been funding.
