David loved calling it our townhouse whenever investors came over.
“This place represents everything we built,” he would say, smiling beneath the chandelier I had chosen.
But the truth was simpler.
The townhouse had belonged to my family before David ever learned how to pronounce private equity.
My grandmother left it to me. Not him. Not us. Me.
David had convinced himself that because he slept there, entertained there, and bragged there, the house had somehow become his crown.
By morning, my attorney had already reviewed the documents.
“You can sell,” she said. “And you can do it quickly.”
I looked around the bedroom where I had forgiven too much.
“Then sell it.”
There comes a moment when mercy does not mean staying. Sometimes mercy begins by refusing to let betrayal keep wearing your name.