“Stella, please — I’m drowning, I’m facing jail,” he sobbed. “Just lift the freeze and forgive me.”

“Get up, Everett. You have nothing left to offer me,” I said. “Deal with the prosecutors yourself.”

I stepped around him and slid into a waiting car without looking back. The divorce hearing was a rout: the judge awarded me full ownership of the apartment, ordered severe restitution, and dissolved the marriage.

Chapter 11 — A Life My Own

Two years later, the air on a rooftop terrace in San Francisco was crisp and clean. I’d sold the Atlanta condo, taken the equity, and accepted a role as a regional vice president for a tech firm on the West Coast.

My phone buzzed with a text from Harrison — a photo of a rideshare driver in a battered sedan. It was Everett, deeply lined and exhausted. He’d liquidated his retirement savings to stay out of prison and now drove sixteen hours a day to survive, while his parents lived in a tiny rental back in Ohio.

I turned the phone face down without any particular feeling as a venture capitalist named Colton slid a fresh glass of wine across the table.