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When the forensic report came back, the signature on the power of attorney was confirmed: not mine.
The case moved from civil dispute to criminal investigation: document fraud, false registration.
Conrad panicked. Harper panicked.
She began sending message after message — dignified at first, then desperate.
I know I did wrong, but Conrad deceived me too. He said he owed me a home — I didn't force him. Can you withdraw the case? I'll return the flat. I'll step back. Please.
I thought of her standing in front of the bedroom mirror in my dress.
I thought of her words: you're the type that's useful to marry.
People are like this.
When they're taking, they're self-righteous. When it's time to give it back, they claim they were victims all along.
I didn't reply.
I forwarded the messages to Elliot.
His reply: four words.
Continue. No withdrawal.
Then Harper showed up at my building on a rainy evening.
"Stella. We need to talk."
"We have nothing to discuss."
"I think Conrad has one more trick left." She lowered her voice. "He may have logged the renovation and furniture costs as gifts he gave you — planning to use them as a counter-argument. To say you accepted financial support from him."
I stopped.
"What do you mean?"
She pressed her lips together, as if she'd made up her mind about something.
"I heard him talking to a friend, drunk. He said your kind is easiest to manage — if you just got the wedding done, any resistance you showed afterwards would fade. He'd just need to handle you for a while; you weren't the type to actually leave. He said: marriage doesn't need love, it needs someone useful, someone stable. The person you want to keep close, you put in your heart. The person you marry, you put on the title deeds."
The last warmth I'd had for what we'd been went out like a light.
I wasn't beaten by a first love.
I was beaten by a calculation.
He didn't want two women. He wanted everything: the feeling and the function. The electricity of first love and the stability of a sensible wife. And I, conveniently, was the most stable, the most sensible, the most easily sacrificed.
I asked Harper: "Why are you telling me this now?"
A long quiet.
"Because he's trying to push all of it onto me. He's already started laying the groundwork — saying I was the one who wouldn't let go, that I planted myself in the flat, that I manipulated the registration."
She looked at me.
"Stella, he doesn't love anyone. He loves himself."
I watched her for a moment.
I didn't forgive her.
But for the first time, I saw that she was also someone who'd been lied to by the same man's story. Just greedier with it. Just more willing to hurt someone else to get there.
So she deserved what she got.
"You can testify," I said.
She blinked.
"It's your only way out of this."
She turned it over. Then she nodded.