I let out a single, short, hollow laugh. It was a terrifying sound. It was the sound of a woman whose heart had just been entirely replaced by a solid block of ice.
“Meline?” Dr. Petrova asked nervously, reaching out to touch my arm.
“Thank you, Doctor,” I said smoothly, my voice devoid of any emotion as I sat up and adjusted my blouse. “Please, close her file. I wouldn’t want you to violate HIPAA.”
I walked out of the clinic, pasting a flawless, placid fake smile onto my face as I greeted Garrett, who was waiting for me in the lobby, drinking a bad cup of coffee. He stood up, looking eager and supportive.
“Well?” Garrett asked, wrapping his arms around me. “How did it go, babe?”
“It went perfectly, Garrett,” I whispered into his shoulder, my eyes entirely dead. “We’re going to be a family.”
I knew that tears were a luxury I could no longer afford. I didn’t need to cry. I needed data. And I was completely unaware that the financial trail I was about to uncover wouldn’t just destroy my husband—it would lead directly to the matriarch of the Mercer family.
Chapter 2: The Doomsday Binder
For six agonizing, suffocating weeks, I lived with a monster.
I smiled over dinner. I kissed his cheek when he left for work. I pretended to believe him when he called, his voice full of fake exhaustion, claiming he had to pick up an “extra delivery shift” across state lines to help save money for the nursery. I played the role of the blissfully ignorant, hormonal, nesting pregnant wife to absolute perfection.
Behind his back, I became an apex predator.
I didn’t do it alone. I enlisted the help of my older sister, Colleen, a fiercely protective woman who worked as a forensic auditor for a major insurance firm. We turned my small home office into a war room.
While Garrett was supposedly driving his delivery routes, Colleen and I ruthlessly, methodically tore apart his entire financial history.
Garrett thought he was clever. He had opened a separate checking account at a small, regional bank, funneling a portion of his paycheck into it to hide his expenses. But he was sloppy. He had used our shared home computer to log into the account once, and his browser had saved the password.
We found the hidden apartment lease. He was renting a luxury, two-bedroom apartment for Tanya in the next town over, under the guise of a “corporate housing” expense. He was paying her rent, her car insurance, and her massive medical bills.
But the true, sickening, absolute killing blow didn’t come from Garrett’s hidden checking account.
It came on a rainy Thursday night, when Colleen hacked into the rewards portal of our joint business credit card—a card tied to a small, secondary LLC we used for tax purposes.
“Meline, look at this,” Colleen whispered, her voice tight with disbelief, pointing to the glowing screen of her laptop.
I leaned over her shoulder.
There were massive, recent charges on the account that I hadn’t authorized. A $1,200 luxury, imported baby stroller. A custom-built, $2,500 designer crib. And a $800 rocking chair.
But it wasn’t the purchases that made the blood freeze in my veins. It was the shipping address, and the specific loyalty account tied to the purchases.
The items hadn’t been shipped to our house. They had been shipped directly to Tanya’s luxury apartment.
