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This place is a complete shithole. How can she live here when her father has been staying in nice apartments in the city? This doesn’t make sense.

I head back to my car, confusion setting in as I try to figure out what is going on.

Was that debt collector connected to the apartment? I doubt it. She’s already been evicted, so they wouldn’t be bothering to chase her down anymore.

A place as shit as this would be dirt cheap. Yet she’s still been kicked out. I can’t fathom it. If she’s working with her father, she should be coining enough to pay for this dump. A lot nicer than this dump, actually.

Sitting in my car, I wait for Lara to come out of the apartment. When she does, she looks even more upset.

She climbs into a piece of shit car that she has to try four times to start before it splutters to life. When she drives, the back wheel wobbles, dangerously unaligned. It’s a death trap on wheels.

I spend the day following her around town, from debt collector to debt collector, trying to smooth over the issues they clearly have with her. She’s not hiding from them—she’s trying to assure them that she is planning on paying. That she isn’t running. But they are getting increasingly aggressive with her, which is pissing me off.

Regardless of whether she accepts it or not, she is my wife. And no one gets to talk to her that way.

If I weren’t trying to stay hidden, I’d be breaking their jaws right now.

Lara has been on the go all day. She looks exhausted.

I feel exhausted just watching her go through this.

The more I watch, the more none of it makes sense.

She hasn’t even tried to make contact with her father. She’s staying in the dodgiest part of town, she’s pleading with debt collectors, she’s being evicted from her shithole apartment—where is the scam? The hidden money? The secret plot cooked up by her and Anton?

I’m in my car watching a massive man trying to intimidate her across the street.

He hasn’t touched her, but if he does, I’m not going to be able to hold myself back. I’m tired of the way they’ve been treating her.

My phone rings and I grunt as I pull it from my pocket.

“What,” I snap, angry at the debt collector I have my eyes locked on.

“Sir, it’s Roan.”

“Yeah, sorry, man, what’s going on?”

“I have a report for you. The information we’ve gathered about Lara.”

“Go ahead.”

“She stays in an apartment near the docks, that shithole area where the crackheads hang out. It looks like she has high amounts of debt that she owes to numerous people across town, and the bookies are after her. She’s been stalked by a number of them after not paying on time. I think they’re pissed off.”

“So, she’s just like her father? What is it, a gambling addiction?”

“No, sir, nothing like that. Her debts are medical expenses at some hospital. The bills are in her mother’s name. Her mother is deceased. And the remainder of the debts, the ones with the collectors, are actually her father’s debts that he managed to manipulate her into taking over. All of the bookies have his name in the book, crossed out and then replaced with hers.”

“Are you fucking serious? They aren’t her debts?” I snarl angrily, my hatred towards Anton tripling in a matter of seconds.

“Dead serious, sir. Also, she lost her jobs a few days ago because she didn’t show up at work without contacting them.”

“Jobs? Plural?”

“She had three different jobs, sir. One at a law firm, one as a data analyst, and one doing translation of various documents after-hours.”

“She lost all three jobs?” I sigh, knowing it was because of me.

“Yes, sir.”