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Turned out, for the last eighteen months, I had little to nothing. I hadn’t chosen this apartment because I liked the furniture or enjoyed the constant stirring in the hallways or everything being broken down inside of it.
It was the cheapest thing I could find in walking distance of the courthouse.
Because I had to downsize my car.
And sell my condo.
All to make things right after finding out about the debt that Carl had accumulated in my name while I wasn’t looking. Yeah, I’d seen the shopping bags and the new things he brought into the condo. He claimed he’d gotten it all on sale.
And he kind of did. He got it 100 percent off since he’d signed up for credit cards using my name and social security number to get them. I hadn’t been a person who checked their credit or even their bank account regularly. I had all my payments scheduled to pay automatically.
Or so I thought.
After he left—a week after I confronted him—I looked into everything. The mortgage hadn’t been paid in almost three months because he stopped the auto-pay. Everything from electricity to water, to the garbage bill were past due. He must have been sneaking to the mailbox before I got home and also deleted emails, so I never knew anything wrong was happening.
Gods, I had been a lovestruck, stupid fool for all my hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of educating myself.
Of course, I wasn’t liable for the things he did fraudulently, but I had to pick up the pieces of my life. And by the time I did, it was too late to save the condo—thus my lovely apartment—and I’d nearly lost my job because the city didn’t look kindly on prosecuting attorneys having bill collectors show up at the office on a regular basis.
I breathed out a sigh of relief as I checked all of my accounts, savings and checking, along with my credit report and my security account. I had signed up for a service that texted me anytime someone tried to use my name or any of my credit cards. He had tried a couple of times since the breakup, but they alerted me at once.
I learned my lesson with Carl.
Never trust anyone—especially not a handsome, smooth omega.
Honestly, I didn’t trust that he would never try to do anything to me like that again.
A knock on the door sent my growling stomach into overdrive. After retrieving my measly meal from the delivery guy, I plopped down on the hard couch and tucked in. This was the last month I had to live this way. Eighteen months of budgeting and living off scraps, and I was finally done paying for anything that had legitimately been mine but had not been paid due to his access to my bank account.
All of that sacrifice, and soon I would be free.
Stuffing a dumpling into my mouth, I opened some bills. All good news. Everything was on time or scheduled to be paid on time like they should’ve been all along.
There was one envelope near the bottom that I didn’t recognize. The return address read Franklin Constant. In a state I’d never been to.
I turned it around to see that the heavy-weight envelope was sealed with wax and had a bear on it.
An envelope with a wax seal. I didn’t even know they sold or made those anymore. To me, it was something right out of a Robin Hood movie, something a king would send to his lover.
Not me, in this shitty apartment while eating my six-dollar soup.
What in the hell could it be?
Only one way to find out.
