I got up without making a sound. I pulled the shoebox from under the bed. Inside were all the envelopes. Twelve weeks. Twelve payments. Twelve humiliations folded into bills.
I counted them on the kitchen table. There was enough to pay for a legal consultation, change the locks, have documents copied, and still buy myself a coffee without asking for permission.
I put on a hoodie, grabbed the car keys, and left. New York City in the middle of the night has a strange silence. It’s not complete silence. It’s a murmur of refrigerators, distant dogs, garbage trucks, and people who start working before others finish lying.
I went to a 24-hour print shop near Union Square. I made copies of everything I had found in Bruno’s study that afternoon. Because yes, the cleaning lady had seen the papers. And she hadn’t just seen them; she had photographed them.
There was a supposed authorization to sell the house. A transfer of rights. A power of attorney with my name misspelled. A preliminary contract with a buyer named Sarah Villalobos.
