At 6 a.m., my mother-in-law’s screams echoed through the entire building. “You changed the locks on our apartment?!” My husband burst in, pointing at my face and yelling, “Give me the keys. Now.” I couldn’t help but laugh. That apartment had never been theirs – not a single dollar of it. I calmly slid a white envelope across the table. “You should read this first.” What happened next left their world completely collapsed.

Silence. Then, a string of profanities from the man who claimed to love me.

I turned off the intercom. I walked to the bedroom, put in earplugs, and lay down.

I knew they wouldn’t leave. They would sleep in the lobby or in the car (if they could get into it). They would stew in their self-righteous anger. They would plan their counter-attack.

Let them.

I closed my eyes. For the first time in years, the bed felt huge. It felt… mine.

Cliffhanger:
I woke up at 5:00 AM. The sun was just bleeding gray light into the sky. I made coffee. I dressed in my sharpest suit—a charcoal Armani that I usually reserved for hostile takeovers.

At 6:00 AM, the screaming started again.

But this time, it wasn’t just banging. It was the sound of a drill.

Ryan was trying to drill out the lock.

I didn’t run to the door. I walked.

I checked the security feed on my phone. Ryan was there, red-faced, holding a power drill he must have borrowed from the maintenance closet. Karen was standing behind him, filming with her phone, narrating a story about “domestic abuse” for her twelve Facebook followers.

I pressed the button on the intercom.

“Ryan,” I said. “Stop.”

“Open it!” he screamed over the whine of the drill. “You locked us out all night! You crazy b****!”

“You are damaging the hardware,” I said calmly. “And you are currently committing a felony. Attempted breaking and entering.”

“It’s not breaking and entering if I live here!” Ryan roared, kicking the door.

I sighed. It was time.

I walked to the door. I placed my thumb on the scanner. The system beeped a cheerful, melodic triad. Chime-chime-chime. The heavy bolts retracted with a sound like a vault opening.

I pulled the door open.

Ryan stumbled forward, the drill whining in his hand. He looked like a wreck—rumpled clothes, dark circles under his eyes, wild rage in his face. Karen looked equally disheveled, her hair flat, her lipstick smeared.

“Finally!” Ryan shouted, pushing past me. “God, you are going to pay for this, Elena! I’m calling a lawyer! This is illegal eviction!”

“I’m filming this!” Karen shrieked, pointing her phone in my face. “Say hello to the world, you psycho!”

I didn’t flinch. I walked to the kitchen island and picked up the white envelope.

“Ryan,” I said. “Before you call a lawyer, you should read this.”

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