Chapter 9
Logan filed for annulment.
Sabrina fought it for three days.
Then stopped.
Maybe because her lawyer advised her.
Maybe because Logan’s family had better lawyers.
Maybe because somewhere beneath the wreckage, she knew the marriage began with lies.
I did not ask.
I focused on the criminal case and the civil one.
Lydia found more transfers.
Victoria had sent Raymond money for years.
Not one affair.
Not one mistake.
Years.
While I paid tuition.
While I fixed cars.
While I worked late sewing prom dresses and suits for strangers so Sabrina could study without student debt.
Raymond had been there the whole time.
Not as a father.
As a drain.
Then Lydia found a file labeled S.D. Trust.
Sabrina Davis Trust.
I had opened it when she was five.
College, emergencies, future home.
Almost two hundred thousand dollars.
Gone.
Victoria had drained it with Sabrina’s authorization six months earlier.
I sat very still.
“She signed?”
“Yes,” Lydia said softly.
I opened the scanned withdrawal form.
Sabrina’s signature curved across the bottom.
Purpose: Wedding and biological family restoration.
Biological family restoration.
I felt something in me go quiet.
That evening, Sabrina came again.
This time, I let her in because I needed her to see the empty trust file on my desk.
She stared at it.
“Mom said it was my money.”
“It was.”
Her face lifted.
“It was mine?”
“For your future. Not Raymond’s watch. Not his debts. Not your mother’s plan.”
She began crying.
“I didn’t know she emptied it.”
“But you signed.”
“She said real fathers deserve support too.”
I looked at her.
“Sabrina, did you ever wonder why the real father needed money from the man you were ashamed of?”
May you like
She sank into the chair.
For once, she had no answer.
