Chapter 5 - The Desperate Gamble
I stepped out onto the gravel driveway before Dan could stop me, though he was at my side within a second, his arm firmly braced behind me. The cold night air carried the sharp scent of damp leaves and impending rain.
"Get off my property, Vanessa," I said, keeping my distance.
Vanessa didn't yell or throw a tantrum as she usually did when cornered. Instead, she fell to her knees right there on the damp gravel. The sound of her knees hitting the stone made my stomach churn with pure disgust.
"Molly, please," she sobbed, holding up the thick manila envelope. "You have to listen to me! Philip told me what happened at the lawyer's office. He called me in hysterics! He said you're taking everything. The townhouse lease is in his name—the landlord just called saying I have forty-eight hours to get out! Where am I supposed to go? I'm carrying his child!"
"That sounds like a conversation between you and Philip," Dan said coldly, stepping forward. "You chose your bed. Go lie in it somewhere far away from here."
"I made a mistake, Molly!" Vanessa cried, tears cutting tracks through her makeup. "He manipulated me! He started grooming me when I was barely out of college, back when I worked at the nursery! He told me he was miserable, that your mother didn't love him, that you only cared about yourself! He gave me money, he bought my silence—I was terrified of him!"
I let out a sharp, bitter laugh that cut through the quiet night. "Terrified? You sat at my dining room table two weeks ago with a smirk on your face while you brought a coconut cake meant to mock my life! You tried to frame Dan for an affair! You whispered poison into my ear about my own husband for six months while you were sleeping with my father!"
Vanessa scrambled to her feet, realizing her tears weren't softening my resolve. The pathetic victim mask slipped, replaced by the desperate, venomous glint I knew all too well.
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"You think you've won, don't you?" she spat, thrusting the envelope toward me. "Look at this! Philip didn't just ruin his own money, Molly. He took out fraudulent business loans using your bakery's LLC as collateral three years ago! He forged your signature! If you ruin him, you ruin your bakery too! Take back the lawsuit against me, make Doreen drop the divorce settlement, or I hand these forged loan notes over to the bank and watch your precious kitchen get padlocked by the state!"
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