“I was fully intending to pay every single dollar back the second our municipal hospital bid cleared.”

“You tried to do that by stealing money from Paige?” Brenda screamed, tears welling in her eyes.

“Paige had millions of dollars sitting in trust accounts doing absolutely nothing while my business was suffocating,” Brandon shouted, turning his furious red eyes toward me.

“We are legally married, which means whatever her father left behind belongs to me by right.”

I leaned forward in my chair, looking directly into the face of the man who had abandoned our daughter in a grocery store.

“You built nothing with your own hands, Brandon,” I said, my voice cutting through his frantic shouting with terrifying clarity.