sunglasses perched on her head, long acrylic nails, and an expensive leather handbag that Skylar recognized immediately because she herself had paid for it a year earlier.
She glanced at the boxes stacked by the entrance, then at the two police officers, and finally at Skylar’s bandaged face. Instead of being scared, she looked completely indignant.
“Seriously, you called the cops over a lovers’ quarrel?” Suzanne said, rolling her eyes. “How ridiculous can you be?”
One of the officers raised his hand to cut her off.
“Miss, watch your words right now,” he warned her sternly.
Derek closed the door slowly behind them. His expression shifted from mockery to calculation as he looked at the table, saw the ring, the copy of the police report, and the documents neatly arranged in a yellow folder.
Then he understood that this wasn’t a temporary jealous outburst or a tantrum. Skylar had prepared an escape.
“Skylar, don’t make this a big deal,” he said, using that soft voice he used when he wanted to persuade strangers. “It was an accident because I accidentally dropped my mug.”
She didn’t respond to his lie. Instead, she handed the officer the medical report.
“Here’s the emergency room report,” she told the officer calmly. “There are also photographs of the burn.”
Derek took one step closer to her, his eyes narrowing.
“Now you’re going to ruin my life over a cup of coffee?” he whispered harshly.
Skylar looked up, meeting his gaze without flinching.
“You decided to throw it, Derek,” she said.
Suzanne let out a bitter, mocking laugh from the hallway.
“Oh, please, Skylar,” Suzanne sneered. “If you had stayed still, it wouldn’t have hit you so hard.”
The silence that followed was so heavy that even Derek turned to look at his sister with a warning glance. The phrase hung in the air like a dirty confession, proving they weren’t surprised by the attack, but only by the consequences.
Skylar took out her cell phone and showed a text conversation to the officers. There were messages from Derek from the night before.
“My sister needs you to chip in for her expenses,” one text read. “Don’t make me look bad in front of my family, so give her the card tomorrow or you’ll see.”
Then she opened an audio message from Suzanne. The sister’s voice was clear, mocking, and incredibly vulgar.
“Tell your wife not to be so tight-fisted, Derek,” Suzanne’s voice echoed in the room. “If she lives in her little apartment, it’s because you give her presence, so she can lend me the card, especially since she doesn’t even have kids anyway.”
Derek tried to snatch the cell phone from Skylar’s hand, but the policeman intervened quickly.
“Don’t touch her, sir,” the officer ordered, stepping between them.
Skylar took a deep breath. For the first time in years, Derek had to back down when someone ordered him to.
Suzanne gestured toward the cardboard boxes angrily.
“And why are you taking everything from this place?” Suzanne demanded. “We all used that coffee maker.”
“I bought it,” Skylar said coldly. “Just like the living room set, the refrigerator, and half of what your brother brags about to everyone.”
Derek clenched his jaw, his face turning red with anger.
“This apartment is mine too, Skylar,” he snapped. “I’m your husband.”
Skylar opened the yellow folder and placed a copy of the legal deed on the table.
“No, Derek,” she replied. “It’s been mine since two years before we got married, and the mortgage, property taxes, and maintenance are all paid by me, so your name isn’t on it anywhere.”
Derek’s composure crumbled for a moment. Suzanne took off her sunglasses, looking shocked.
“You can’t leave him homeless, Skylar,” Suzanne yelled.
“He tried to burn me out of my own kitchen,” Skylar replied with a steady voice. “I’m not leaving him homeless, but I’m just refusing to let him use my home.”
The agent asked Derek to stay back while Skylar finished packing her remaining items. She walked through the apartment as if she were seeing it for the last time, and at the same time, for the very first time.
In the master bedroom, she found Suzanne’s bag under the bed, filled with receipts from purchases made with a supplementary credit card Skylar had never authorized. In the small study, she found printed bank statements with charges of 850, 1,420, and 2,100 dollars from high-end stores where Skylar had never set foot.
Her stomach clenched with a sudden wave of nausea. It wasn’t just physical abuse because her money was disappearing, too.
Without a word, she slipped the papers into the yellow folder. Derek saw her do it and went completely pale.
“That’s not yours, Skylar,” he stammered.
Skylar finally looked at him with pure disgust.
“It’s on my financial statement, Derek,” she said. “Of course it’s mine.”
That night, Skylar slept at her friend Megan’s house in the Brickell district, her skin burning and her cell phone vibrating every few minutes with notifications. Derek’s mother, Mrs. Greer, sent her seven long voice messages.
A cousin texted her, telling her not to make a dramatic scene over a small marital issue. Suzanne, texting from another unknown number, demanded she drop the criminal charges before her brother lost his corporate job.
Skylar put the phone away and kept everything as evidence. The next day, a domestic violence lawyer named Sandra Villalobos reviewed the financial documents and asked her a question that chilled her to the bone.
“Do you know that with these unauthorized charges we could also be talking about misuse of your bank information?” Sandra asked, looking over her glasses.
Skylar didn’t answer right away. She remembered the times Derek asked for her card to check something online, the times Suzanne would show up wearing expensive new things, and the suspicious bank calls he always insisted on answering for her.
Then Sandra pointed to a massive charge of 3,800 dollars at a luxury jewelry store in Miami Beach.
“This doesn’t seem like your husband’s usual spending pattern,” Sandra observed. “It seems like someone who knew exactly how much you could spend without triggering a fraud alert.”
Skylar felt more cold than afraid as the truth settled in. At that exact moment, she received a message from an unknown number on her phone.
It was a photo taken from the street, showing the exact facade of her apartment building. Below the image, a single sentence read, “Open up or we’re going in for what’s coming to Suzanne.”
Sandra read the threatening message, stood up immediately, and called the Public Prosecutor’s Office to report the intimidation.
But before she left the room, another notification arrived on Skylar’s screen. This time it was a clear screenshot of a bank transfer made six months earlier from Skylar’s account to an account in Suzanne’s name.
The amount was 9,600 dollars. Skylar had never made it, and the description on the transaction read, “Initial payment, family agreement.”
That’s when she understood that the credit card wasn’t the real problem. They were setting her up to take much more from her life.
