I came home early from workto caught my husband was moving his mistress and their two secret babies into my living room. The mistress was ripping down my late mother’s portrait to hang a TV. “They’re moving in. Deal with it,” he sneered. “We need the space.” He expected me to cry and beg. I didn’t. I calmly set my keys on the table, pulled out my phone, and called the one person who could entirely destroy him.

Mr. Vance’s face turned a violent shade of purple. “You son of a bitch. You were trying to traffic my daughter across borders with stolen money?!”

“No! No, wait, let me explain!” Ben stammered, raising his hands in surrender as the two uniformed officers moved in.

“Benjamin Sterling,” Detective Harris recited, her voice a cold hammer of justice. “You are under arrest for first-degree wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and criminal forgery. Put your hands behind your back.”

They spun him around. The metallic click-clack of the handcuffs locking around his wrists was the sweetest symphony I had ever heard.

They dragged him toward the door. As he passed me, stripped of his arrogance, his fake wealth, and his freedom, he looked at me with pathetic, tear-filled eyes.

“Kate, please,” he whimpered. “I loved you. I did. Don’t let them do this.”

I looked at him, feeling absolutely nothing but the cool relief of a tumor being excised from my life.

“Have a safe flight, Ben,” I whispered.

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