Chapter 7 - The Missing Money
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Three days of icy silence followed. We moved around the apartment like hostile ghosts, carefully avoiding eye contact.
On Sunday morning, while Garrett was at the gym, I decided to sit down and do our monthly budget. We kept a joint savings account for household emergencies and future plans—specifically, the house we were supposed to buy together once Garrett's salary caught up to mine.
I logged into the banking portal, coffee in hand, ready to transfer my monthly contribution.
When the dashboard loaded, I blinked. I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
The balance was wrong. Completely, horrifyingly wrong.
Instead of the $52,000 we had painstakingly saved over three years, the screen proudly displayed a balance of $4,120.
My stomach dropped to the floor. I frantically clicked on the transaction history, my hands shaking so badly I could barely control the mouse.
Transfer to G. Davis - $8,500.
Transfer to G. Davis - $5,000.
Transfer to G. Davis - $7,000.
I scrolled back through the months. There were dozens of them. Small withdrawals at first—a thousand here, two thousand there. But in the last three months, the numbers had skyrocketed. Three thousand five hundred. Six thousand.
Almost $48,000 had vanished. Transferred directly into Garrett's private checking account, which I didn't have access to.
I felt physically sick. The edges of my vision blurred, and a ringing sound filled my ears. That money was mostly mine. I had deposited seventy percent of those funds. It was my bonus from last year. It was my late nights, my weekend hustle, my blood, sweat, and tears.
May you like
He had robbed us. He had robbed me.
I sat in the silence of my beautiful apartment, the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and felt the last thread of my marriage cleanly, violently snap.
