I paused, letting the waves crash against the Malibu shoreline in the background.
“The kind of woman who owns the roof over your head, the food in your stomach, and the very ground you stand on. And today, that woman is evicting you.”
A siren blared in the distance.
It started as a faint whine coming down the Pacific Coast Highway, growing louder and closer with every passing second.
Robert’s mother froze. Tiffany burst into hysterical tears, backing away toward the street, suddenly realizing that her grand wedding had bought her nothing but a mountain of someone else’s debt and a husband facing grand larceny charges.
“Robert, do something!” Tiffany shrieked, clutching her designer handbag—a bag bought with my credit card. “I can’t be stress-tested like this! The baby!”
“Shut up!” Robert snapped, his voice cracking as the red and blue lights began flashing through the palm trees at the end of the driveway. He looked back at the gate, then down at the phone. “Audrey… please. I love you. It was just a mistake. I was weak. She seduced me—Tiffany seduced me! My mother pushed me into it!”
“Robert!” his mother gasped, betrayed.
“It’s true!” Robert yelled at her, his face pale with sweat. “You hated Audrey! You kept saying she was too powerful, that I needed a woman I could control! You did this!”
The spectacle was pathetic. Three vultures tearing each other apart over the scraps of a feast I had revoked.
Two police cruisers pulled up right behind the taxi. Officers stepped out, their heavy boots crunching against the gravel.
“Robert Miller?” the lead officer asked.
Robert turned slowly, his hands trembling. “Officer, listen to me, this is a domestic misunderstanding. My wife is just upset—”
“We have a warrant for your arrest on suspicion of grand larceny, corporate embezzlement, and wire fraud,” the officer interrupted, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
As the steel cuffs clicked around Robert’s wrists, his mother began to wail, a sound devoid of all the majesty she had claimed just hours earlier on Instagram. She reached out to stop the officer, but the second officer held her back.
“Ma’am, step away,” the officer warned.
Tiffany didn’t even try to help him. She was already hailing another rideshare, frantically trying to order a car on her own phone, only to realize her company phone had been remotely locked by my IT department ten minutes ago. She was stranded on a dark Malibu road, wearing a ruined wedding dress, with no money, no job, and no ride home.
