My Ex-Wife wanted Money, The Apocalypse wanted Everything

Chapter 6

The Bennett living room looked like a bomb had gone off inside it.

Margaret was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, her slippers scuffing against the hardwood with every turn. Robert sat in his armchair with his arms folded tight across his chest, his face the color of raw beef. Ryan was leaning against the kitchen doorway with his phone in his hand, scrolling through something with the frantic energy of a man trying to calculate how much money he had just lost. And little Noah sat on the couch eating cereal, entirely unbothered by the adults falling apart around him.

Victoria stood near the window, her back to all of them, staring at the street outside.

“He divorced you.” Robert said it for the fourth time, as if repeating it would somehow change the answer. “That worthless, ungrateful little insect actually divorced you.”

“I heard you the first three times, Dad.” Victoria’s voice was flat, tired, barely there.

“And you just let him?” Margaret stopped pacing and spun toward her daughter, her face twisted with disbelief. “You walked into that courthouse and just signed the papers like some kind of brainless sheep?”

“He had reasons, Mom.” Victoria kept her eyes on the window. “It was going to happen one way or another.”

“What reasons?” Ryan looked up from his phone, his face tight with irritation. “What possible reason could that cockroach have for walking away from this family? We gave him everything. We gave him a wife. We gave him a son. We let him feel like he mattered. And this is how he repays us?”

Victoria said nothing. She knew exactly what reason Ethan had. The DNA report. The proof that Noah was Derek’s son, not his. But she could not tell them that. If her parents found out the truth about Noah, the humiliation would destroy whatever fragile respect they still had for her. And if Ryan found out, he would use it against her the next time they argued about money, which was roughly every seventy two hours.

So she kept her mouth shut.

“The salary.” Robert’s voice dropped low, the way it always did when money was involved. “That’s what matters here. Without Ethan, who is paying the mortgage on this house? Who is covering your mother’s prescriptions? Who is funding Ryan’s next venture?”

“I’ll figure something out.” Victoria turned from the window, her expression carefully blank.

“You’ll figure something out?” Margaret let out a shrill laugh that had no humor in it whatsoever. “Victoria, you haven’t worked a real job in nine years. You don’t have a resume. You don’t have savings. Everything you have, Ethan paid for. And you just let him walk away.”

“She needs to get him back.” Ryan said it like he was ordering takeout. Simple. Obvious. Already decided. “Call him. Cry if you have to. Tell him you made a mistake, that you’ll go to counseling, whatever it takes. Just get that man back into this house writing checks.”

“It’s not that simple, Ryan.” Victoria’s jaw tightened. She could feel the pressure building behind her eyes, but she refused to let any of them see her crack.

“Why not?” Robert leaned forward in his chair. “He’s an orphan with no family and no backbone. You smiled at him once nine years ago and he married you within three months. Do it again.”

“Because he’s different now.” Victoria’s voice came out quieter than she intended. “Something changed in him. I don’t know what it is, but he’s not the same person.”

“People don’t change overnight.” Margaret waved her hand dismissively. “He’s throwing a tantrum. Men do this. They act tough for a week and then come crawling back when they realize they can’t even do their own laundry.”

The doorbell rang.

Everyone froze. For one wild, hopeful second, Margaret’s eyes lit up with the thought that it might be Ethan, already regretting his decision, already standing on their porch ready to apologize.

Robert stood and opened the door.

It was not Ethan.

Helen Parker stood on the front step in her best cardigan, holding a tin of homemade cookies and wearing the kind of smile that only appears on the face of a woman who is about to deliver devastating news while pretending to be friendly.

“Good morning, Margaret! Good morning, Robert!” She stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, the way she always did. Her eyes swept the room, absorbing the tension like a sponge. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I just came by to say congratulations!”

Margaret blinked. “Congratulations for what?”

“For Ethan, of course!” Helen set the cookies on the entry table and clasped her hands together. “I heard he bought Estate Number Eight. The big colonial across the street. Twelve million dollars, and he paid in full. Can you imagine?”

The silence that followed was so thick you could have cut it with a knife.

Robert’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. He looked like a fish that had just been pulled out of water and dropped onto hot concrete.

“Twelve million?” Ryan’s phone slipped from his fingers and clattered against the doorframe.

“That’s what Samantha’s office said.” Helen nodded eagerly, completely oblivious to the devastation she was causing. Or perhaps not oblivious at all. “One million deposit on the spot, didn’t even tour the house. The full payment went through this morning. Your son in law must be doing very well for himself!”

“Ex son in law.” Victoria’s voice came from behind them, barely audible.

Helen’s smile flickered. “I’m sorry?”

“They’re divorced.” Another voice came from the front path. Diana Whitmore, the neighbor from Estate Number Five, was walking up the driveway in her tennis outfit, racket tucked under her arm. She had clearly been listening from the sidewalk. “The whole courthouse processed it yesterday. My friend works in the clerk’s office.”

She stopped at the doorway and looked directly at Margaret with an expression that was half sympathy and half pure, undiluted satisfaction. “You divorced a man who can write a twelve million dollar check? Oh, Margaret. That must sting.”

Margaret’s face went white. Then red. Then a shade of purple that did not exist in nature.

Helen looked between the two women, her cookie tin still sitting untouched on the table, her congratulations now hanging in the air like a bad smell that nobody could wave away.

“Well.” She cleared her throat. “I suppose the cookies are still appropriate. For… comfort.”

“Get out.” Margaret’s voice was barely controlled. “Both of you. Now.”

Helen and Diana retreated, but slowly, savoring every second of the disaster they had just witnessed. The front door closed behind them, and the Bennett family stood in their living room in absolute silence for ten full seconds.

Then Robert exploded.

“Twelve million dollars!” He slammed his palm against the wall. “Where did that rat get twelve million dollars? He was making sixty thousand a year! He drove a car with a cracked windshield! Where in the hell did this money come from?”

“He hid it.” Ryan’s voice was low and fast, his eyes narrowing as the wheels in his head began spinning. “He must have been hiding money for years. Offshore accounts, secret investments, something. That’s why he agreed to give up the house and savings so easily. He didn’t care about those because he already had millions stashed somewhere else.”

“That means Victoria is entitled to half.” Robert pointed at his daughter, his finger shaking with fury. “If he accumulated that wealth during the marriage, it’s community property. She can take him back to court and claim her share.”

“Exactly.” Ryan straightened up, his earlier panic replaced by the hungry, scheming energy that always appeared whenever he smelled money. “We need a lawyer. A good one. An aggressive one.”

“Wait.” Victoria stepped forward, her hands raised. “Before anyone does anything, I think we should talk to Derek first. He knows people. He can find out where the money actually came from before we go making accusations that…”

Nobody listened.

“We don’t need Derek.” Robert was already grabbing his jacket from the hook by the door. “We need to go over there right now and demand an explanation. That money belongs to this family.”

“Dad, this is a bad idea.” Victoria’s voice was firm, but it landed on deaf ears.

“She’s right, for once.” Margaret was already slipping on her shoes, her humiliation from Diana’s comment still burning across her face like a brand. “We should at least call a lawyer first.”

“A lawyer will take weeks.” Ryan grabbed his car keys from the counter. “By then, he could move the money anywhere. We go now, we confront him, and we get the truth out of him before he has time to hide it.”

Robert was already out the door. Margaret followed him half a step behind, her jaw set and her eyes blazing. Ryan jogged past both of them, leading the charge like a general who had never actually won a battle but was absolutely certain this time would be different.

Victoria stood alone in the living room, watching through the window as her family marched across the street toward Estate Number Eight, determined to demand an explanation and force Ethan to hand over the money.