The Son Who Chose A Stranger

The Son Who Chose A Stranger

Gavin

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Three weeks after Mark informed me his "ideal woman" Sarah was moving in, forcing me out, I returned to our house for one thing: the divorce papers his lawyer drafted. As I fumbled for keys I no longer had, heavy, uneven footsteps sounded behind me, a low, slurred muttering growing closer. I pounded on the door, screaming for Mark and our son, Ethan, but through the peephole, Ethan' s shadow moved, then his voice came, muffled and cold: "Go away. You're scaring Sarah." My blood ran cold as my own son chose a stranger' s comfort over my safety, a drunken attacker' s hand clamped down on my shoulder. I screamed, fought, and tumbled onto the lawn, only to hear Ethan tell Mark on the phone, "Mom is making a scene... she's scaring Sarah!" Mark rushed past me, shivering and disheveled, to comfort Sarah, who stood draped in my robe, her face buried in Ethan' s shoulder. He then rounded on me, disgusted: "Look at you, Ava. Making a scene in the middle of the night. You woke Sarah up. She was terrified." They stood united, demanding I apologize to the woman who replaced me, for the crime of being assaulted on my own doorstep, as I realized my phone was dead, useless to call for help. When Sarah offered me peanut butter cookies, knowing about my life-threatening allergy, and Mark merely stared, impatient, without a flicker of recognition, the quiet truth dawned: he didn't remember, or worse, he didn't care. The man who once promised to always be my protector was gone, replaced by a cold stranger, eager for me to sign away our life so he could care for his new love. In that moment of profound betrayal, something shifted inside me. I signed the papers, then looked at Ethan: "I'm going to need to make a statement to the police. I'll need to use your phone." No longer fighting for a husband who despised me or a son who saw me as an inconvenience, I spoke to the police, then blocked Mark and Ethan' s numbers, cutting the last ties.

Introduction

Three weeks after Mark informed me his "ideal woman" Sarah was moving in, forcing me out, I returned to our house for one thing: the divorce papers his lawyer drafted.

As I fumbled for keys I no longer had, heavy, uneven footsteps sounded behind me, a low, slurred muttering growing closer.

I pounded on the door, screaming for Mark and our son, Ethan, but through the peephole, Ethan' s shadow moved, then his voice came, muffled and cold: "Go away. You're scaring Sarah."

My blood ran cold as my own son chose a stranger' s comfort over my safety, a drunken attacker' s hand clamped down on my shoulder.

I screamed, fought, and tumbled onto the lawn, only to hear Ethan tell Mark on the phone, "Mom is making a scene... she's scaring Sarah!"

Mark rushed past me, shivering and disheveled, to comfort Sarah, who stood draped in my robe, her face buried in Ethan' s shoulder.

He then rounded on me, disgusted: "Look at you, Ava. Making a scene in the middle of the night. You woke Sarah up. She was terrified."

They stood united, demanding I apologize to the woman who replaced me, for the crime of being assaulted on my own doorstep, as I realized my phone was dead, useless to call for help.

When Sarah offered me peanut butter cookies, knowing about my life-threatening allergy, and Mark merely stared, impatient, without a flicker of recognition, the quiet truth dawned: he didn't remember, or worse, he didn't care.

The man who once promised to always be my protector was gone, replaced by a cold stranger, eager for me to sign away our life so he could care for his new love.

In that moment of profound betrayal, something shifted inside me.

I signed the papers, then looked at Ethan: "I'm going to need to make a statement to the police. I'll need to use your phone."

No longer fighting for a husband who despised me or a son who saw me as an inconvenience, I spoke to the police, then blocked Mark and Ethan' s numbers, cutting the last ties.

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I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

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