Chapter 5 - The Unraveling Of An Affair
While Ethan was drowning in legal fees and corporate disgrace, his brand-new reality with Kelly was imploding at supersonic speed. On Thursday evening, I received a frantic, blocked-number phone call while sitting quietly in my living room with a cup of herbal tea. Against my better judgment, I tapped the screen and pressed accept. "Olivia! Please, you have to help me!" a panicked, breathless voice cried out. It was Kelly. But gone was the arrogant defiance she had displayed in my foyer just days ago; now, she sounded entirely unhinged, bordering on hysterical. "Why on earth would I help you, Kelly?" I asked coldly. "Because Ethan is a monster!" she sobbed wildly into the receiver, the sounds of shouting and crashing objects echoing loudly in the background. "Since the bank accounts were frozen, he hasn't stopped screaming at me! He spent thousands of dollars of my savings on high-end lawyers who won't even return his calls, and now he’s blaming me for ruining his life! He just told me that he never even loved me, that I was just a convenient distraction while he tried to climb into your family's inner circle!" I couldn't help the dry, humorless chuckle that escaped my lips. "Oh, Kelly. Did you really think a man who could betray his wife of five years out of pure greed would suddenly turn into a loyal, devoted partner when things got hard?" "He hit me, Olivia!" she wailed, her voice cracking with terror. "Well, he threw a glass against the wall and screamed that I trapped him with a baby he doesn't even want! I’m calling the police right now, but I have nowhere to go, my apartment lease was tied to his credit, and the landlord is evicting us by morning—" Click. I hung up the phone without a single word of pity, walking over to block her number permanently. They had built their entire illicit romance on deception, manipulation, and the shared desire to steal what didn't belong to them. Now, trapped in a pressure cooker of their own making, they were tearing each other apart piece by piece. Karma didn't need my help anymore; it was doing its work with absolute, terrifying precision.
