A Divorce She Regrets

CHAPTER 5.

The convoy moved through the city streets in silence.

Ethan sat in the back seat, his hands resting on his knees. He stared out the window, watching familiar neighborhoods pass by. Streets he had walked a thousand times. Corners where he had waited for buses. Shops where he had bought groceries for his sister.

Everything looked the same.But everything had changed.

Claire sat across from him, her phone pressed to her ear. She was speaking in low, clipped tones, coordinating with her team. Ethan heard fragments of her conversation. Locations. Names. Addresses.

But his mind was elsewhere.He was thinking about Lily.

About the last time he had seen her. Three years ago. The morning before the police came to arrest him.

She had been crying. Clinging to his sleeve. Begging him not to go.

"I will be back soon," he had told her, stroking her hair. "I promise. And when I come back, everything will be better."

He had believed it then.

He had believed Vivian would take care of her. That his sacrifice would mean something. That love was worth protecting.

What a fool he had been.

Claire ended her call and looked at him. "Master Cross. We are almost there."

Ethan nodded but said nothing.

The car turned onto a narrow residential street. Old apartment buildings lined both sides. Faded paint. Cracked sidewalks. Laundry hanging from balconies.

This was where he had lived. Where he had raised Lily after their parents died. It was not much. But it had been home.

The car slowed to a stop in front of a small three-story building. Ethan's apartment was on the second floor. Unit 2B.

He stepped out of the car and froze.

The front door to the building was wide open.

Not just unlocked. Open. Swinging slightly in the breeze.

Ethan's jaw tightened. He moved toward the entrance, his footsteps quick and purposeful. Claire and two bodyguards followed close behind.

He climbed the stairs two at a time. His heart pounded in his chest. Something was wrong. He could feel it.

He reached the second floor.The door to Unit 2B was also open.

And from inside came the sound of voices. Loud. Harsh. Accompanied by the crash and scrape of heavy objects being moved.

Ethan stepped through the doorway.And his blood turned to ice.

—-----

The apartment was being destroyed.

Three workers in dirty coveralls were dragging furniture out of the living room. A sofa, a table and chairs. They moved carelessly, roughly, as if the items were garbage.

The walls were bare. Picture frames had been torn down and tossed into piles. Books were scattered across the floor. Broken dishes lay in pieces near the kitchen.

But it was what he saw in the center of the room that made Ethan stop breathing.

Two framed photographs lay on the floor.

His parents.

The glass was shattered. The frames were cracked. And across the surface of both photos were dirty boot prints. As if someone had walked over them. Stepped on them. Ground them into the floor.

Ethan's hands slowly curled into fists.

Those photographs were all he and Lily had left. Their parents had died when Ethan was fifteen and Lily was only eight. A car accident, the police had said. Sudden and tragic. No one to blame.

But Ethan had always wondered. The details had never made sense. The timing had been too convenient. Too clean.

He had buried his suspicions and focused on survival. On raising Lily. On keeping them both alive.

And now, the only memory he had of his parents was being trampled under the feet of strangers.

"Careful with that!" a sharp female voice barked. "Do not scratch it. That armchair is expensive."

Ethan's gaze shifted.

A woman stood near the window, arms folded, watching the workers with a critical eye. She was in her fifties, heavyset, with dyed red hair and too much makeup. She wore a fur coat despite the warm weather and gold jewelry on nearly every finger.

Ethan recognized her immediately.

Vivian's mother. Mrs Hart.

She had never liked him. From the moment Vivian introduced them, she had looked at him with barely concealed disgust. A poor man with no family and no prospects. Not good enough for her daughter.

And now she stood in his home, ordering his belongings to be taken away.

One of the workers bent down to pick up a small object from the corner of the room. It was old and worn, its fabric faded and stitched in places.

A rag doll.Lily's doll.

She had owned it since childhood. It had been a gift from their mother. Lily carried it everywhere, even after she grew too old for toys. She said it made her feel safe.

The worker tossed the doll toward a garbage bag.

"Wait," a younger male voice said lazily.

A man in his twenties stepped forward. He was thin and wiry, with slicked-back hair and an arrogant smirk. He wore an expensive leather jacket and sunglasses even though they were indoors.

Vivian's younger brother.David Hart.

He snatched the doll out of the air before it hit the bag. He looked at it with mock curiosity, then grinned.

"This ugly thing?" he said, holding it up. "The blind girl used to drag this around everywhere, right?"

Mrs. Hart laughed. "She clung to it like a security blanket. Pathetic."

David chuckled and dropped the doll onto the floor. Then, deliberately, he stepped on it.

He twisted his heel, grinding the doll into the dirty floor.

"There," he said, smirking. "Now it matches the rest of this trash."

Mrs. Hart cackled. "Good riddance. That girl was always useless. Born a burden. What kind of life is it, being blind? She should have been sent away years ago."

She turned toward the shattered portrait of Ethan's parents and spat on the floor near it.

"And these two?" she sneered. "Bad luck. That is what they were. Dying and leaving their brats behind. Now we have to clean up the mess."

Ethan's vision went red.

His entire body trembled. Not from fear. Not from sadness.

From pure, unfiltered rage.He took one step forward.

The floorboard creaked under his weight.

Mrs. Hart and David both turned.

Their eyes widened. "You…" Mrs. Hart's face twisted in surprise. Then in anger. "What are you doing here?"

Ethan did not answer. He simply stared at them. His expression was calm. Too calm. Like the surface of water before a storm.

Mrs. Hart recovered quickly. She stepped forward, jabbing a thick finger into Ethan's chest.

"This house," she hissed, her breath sour, "is compensation. Compensation for the years my daughter wasted on you. She gave you three years of her life while you rotted in prison. This is the least you owe her."

Ethan's eyes did not leave hers.

Mrs. Hart's confidence grew. She jabbed his chest again, harder this time.

"And that useless blind sister of yours?" she sneered. "We got tired of feeding her. So we sent her to a friend of Marcus's. Someone who knows how to take care of special girls like her."

Her smile was cruel. Mocking."She is probably serving him right now.”