Laura shook his hands off, telling him that two weeks of lies and a literal theft had ended any chance of a future. The “forced move-in” plan had revealed exactly who they were. She walked to the door as Eleanor continued to scream at her to “get out.”
In the hallway, Laura hurried down the stairs, with Mike chasing after her. He was whining about “pressure from his mother” and how he “didn’t have a choice.” Laura stopped and looked at him with pure, unadulterated disgust.
She told him he was a spineless child who betrayed the woman he supposedly loved to please his mother’s greed. He wasn’t a partner; he was a liability. She turned and ran down the rest of the stairs, ignoring his shouts.
She called an Uber from her phone. Mike ran out into the street, looking disheveled, begging her to listen. Laura ignored him. When the car pulled up, she jumped in and locked the door.
The driver saw Mike reaching for the door handle and told him to back off. As the car pulled away, Laura looked back and saw Mike standing alone in the middle of the street, looking small and defeated.
As they hit the main road, the adrenaline wore off, and Laura started to shake. She wasn’t crying; she was just furious at the time she’d wasted. She was home in twenty minutes.
The new locks gleamed in the hallway light—the locksmith had done a perfect job. Laura locked every bolt and leaned against the door. She was safe. Her home was still hers.
No more toxic mother-in-law, no more fake smiles, no more lies. She went to her living room and collapsed on the sofa. Her phone buzzed—a text from Mike asking for “one more chance.”
She blocked his number instantly. Then came calls from unknown numbers—Eleanor. She blocked those too. Finally, an email from Eleanor arrived, trying to claim the whole thing was a “family joke” that Laura had taken too seriously.
Eleanor actually asked why Laura was being “so stingy” with her extra rooms. Laura blocked the email address and tossed her phone aside. She sat in the silence of her beautiful home, breathing through the anger.
She realized she had almost made the biggest mistake of her life because she was worried about “settling down.” The “perfect man” was just a front for a real estate scam. She went to her safe, looked at her deed one more time, and locked it away.
She spent the rest of the night in a daze. She couldn’t wrap her head around the audacity of it. By midnight, she had dozens of missed calls from random numbers—Mike was using his friends’ phones.
He sent messages promising to “cut his mother off” if she’d just take him back. Eleanor sent voice notes that alternated between curses and pleas for “mercy.” Laura deleted them all and finally fell into a restless sleep.
She dreamed of Eleanor moving her dusty furniture into the living room while Mike watched and smiled. She woke up in a cold sweat. After a cup of strong coffee, she sat by the window and watched the city wake up.
She felt a strange sense of power. She had protected herself. Jennifer called later that morning, and Laura told her the whole story. Jennifer was horrified and spent ten minutes cursing Mike and his mother.
