David sank back into the plush leather booth, dragging both hands down his face as the sheer magnitude of his financial ruin settled over him. “Marina, for the love of God, we can talk about this. You can’t honestly leave me with nothing. I am going to have a child to support.”
“You are going to have a child to support,” I emphasized, leaning in slightly. “With your car salesman salary. Which, by the way, is going to be incredibly tight once the state initiates the child support deductions.”
“Child support?” Beatrice choked out the words as if I had just punched her in the throat.
“Of course,” I said, feigning innocent surprise. “The biological father has to pay child support. In the state of Texas, the standard calculation is twenty percent of the non-custodial parent’s net income for one child. If David is grossing about five thousand dollars a month, that leaves roughly thirty-eight hundred after standard taxes. Twenty percent of that is seven hundred and sixty dollars a month. Plucked straight from his paycheck before he even sees it, every single month, until that child turns eighteen.”
They stared at each other in absolute, silent panic. It was painfully obvious that neither of these two brilliant strategists had bothered to do elementary math before blowing up their lives.
“Plus,” I added helpfully, “there will be out-of-pocket medical expenses, daily childcare when you both go to work, clothing, education. It is going to be quite expensive to raise a baby, guys.”
David buried his face in his hands again. “My God, Marina. How can you sit there and be so utterly cold? So calculating?”
“Calculating? Me?” I let out a sharp laugh that echoed over the jazz music. “You two spent the last four months orchestrating a devastating betrayal, planned out the exact logistics to humiliate me publicly in this exact restaurant, and you have the nerve to call me calculating?”
I watched Beatrice doing the frantic mental arithmetic. If David earned five thousand a month and paid eight hundred in child support, that left forty-two hundred. Minus taxes, he was taking home maybe thirty-four hundred dollars. That was what they had to live on to support him, her, and a newborn infant.
“Beatrice,” I said softly, tilting my head. “Remind me again, how much do you pull in as a freelance graphic designer?”
She swallowed hard, looking physically sick. “It varies. About two thousand a month. When I actually have projects.”
“About two thousand when you have projects,” I repeated, nodding thoughtfully. “So, the three of you will be living on roughly five thousand, four hundred dollars a month, in the absolute best-case scenario. Where exactly are you going to live on that budget?”
“At my parents’ house in San Antonio,” she mumbled, staring intensely at her lap.
“Ah. That cramped, one-bedroom apartment you currently rent for eight hundred dollars? It’s going to be awfully tight with a screaming newborn and a frustrated man, don’t you think?”
The silence stretching across our table was deafening. All around us, wealthy patrons clinked their glasses and dined happily, completely oblivious to the absolute financial slaughter unfolding just a few feet away.
“Marina,” David tried one final, desperate time, reaching across the table toward my hand. I pulled it away before he could touch me. “Are you seriously going to do this? Are you really going to walk away and leave us with absolutely nothing? I know we hurt you, but—”
“David, you didn’t just hurt me,” I interrupted, my voice devoid of any sympathy. “You tried to rob me. You looked at me and thought I was some weak, emotional idiot who would just hand over half of my six-hundred-thousand-dollar net worth because you claimed you were in love.”
“Six hundred thousand dollars?” Beatrice repeated, her jaw practically unhinging.
“Surprise,” I said dryly. “I am significantly wealthier than your little calculations accounted for. And now, with my new promotion, I will be bringing home sixteen thousand dollars a month while the two of you fight over coupon clippings for diapers.”
David dropped his head onto the table. “I’m an idiot,” he groaned into the tablecloth. “I am a complete, colossal idiot.”
“Finally, something we can completely agree on,” I said, reaching for my purse.
Beatrice sat up straight, desperately playing her very last, pathetic card. “Mari, please. You are my sister. We have been family our entire lives. You cannot just abandon us like this out in the cold. What about your niece or nephew? Don’t you want to be an aunt? Don’t you want to help provide for them?”
“Beatrice,” I said, looking her dead in the eye, stripping away any remaining illusion of our sibling bond. “You intentionally seduced my husband because you thought it was your golden ticket to my bank accounts. You calculated wrong. And now, you are going to have to live every single day with the consequences of your own greed.”
“But family—” she started, hot tears finally spilling over her eyelashes.
“Family does not betray family,” I stated, my voice ringing with finality. “Family does not humiliate family in public. Family does not climb into bed with their sister’s husband out of sheer envy.”
I stood up from the table, unzipped my wallet, and pulled out two crisp fifty-dollar bills, dropping them exactly where I had placed them a month ago. Once again, it was more than enough to cover my share. “Your attorneys can contact my lawyer, Helena Williams, in Houston. She has all the necessary documentation to process this.”
“Marina, wait!” David scrambled to stand up, knocking his knee violently against the heavy wooden table in his haste to follow me.
“No, David,” I said, holding up a hand to stop him in his tracks. “You waited. You waited one hundred and twenty days to tell me the truth. You purposefully waited until the day of my promotion to maximize the humiliation. You waited until you thought you had everything perfectly orchestrated to break me. Now, I am going to make you wait.”
“Wait for what?” Beatrice cried out, a genuine sob escaping her throat.
“Wait to see what it actually feels like to be poor,” I said, looking back at them one last time. “To know what it feels like to live your life counting every single penny. To know what it feels like to walk past a two-hundred-dollar restaurant and know you will never, ever be able to afford a table inside. Maybe now, you will finally understand exactly why I work so hard to have what I have. And why I am so fiercely protective of what is mine.”
I turned my back on them and walked out of Terrazzo. Behind me, I could hear Beatrice break into loud, racking sobs, and David cursing bitterly under his breath.
When I reached the parking lot, I climbed into the cool, dark sanctuary of my car, gripping the leather steering wheel. I allowed myself one long, uninterrupted moment of pure, unadulterated satisfaction. They had actively tried to destroy my life, and in doing so, they had completely annihilated their own.
My phone vibrated in the cupholder. It was Helena.
“So?” she asked the second I answered. “How was the theater?”
“Better than a front-row seat on Broadway,” I replied, a genuine laugh escaping my chest. “You should have seen their faces when they finally understood they weren’t getting a single dime.”
“Marina, you are diabolical,” Helena said warmly. “And I completely approve.”
“Helena, can I file the divorce papers tomorrow?”
“I will personally march down to the courthouse and file them first thing Monday morning,” she promised. “In sixty days, you will be a completely free woman. And they will still be completely broke.”
I pulled out of the parking lot and drove toward my beautiful home, smiling for the first time in weeks. Actually, it was the most genuine smile I had worn in years.