Chapter 4 - The Midnight Desperation
It was nearly midnight when my security system alert chimed softly on my phone.
I sat up in bed, instantly alert. I pulled up the security camera feed from my front porch.
There, standing under the dim porch light, looking disheveled, exhausted, and utterly defeated, was Ethan.
He looked terrible. His hair was messy, his designer suit was wrinkled, and dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He pounded weakly on the front door, shouting my name in a hoarse, desperate whisper.
“Maya! Please open the door! I know you’re in there!”
I didn't move. I simply watched him through the crystal-clear camera feed on my phone screen, feeling a profound sense of emptiness where love had once lived. There was no anger left in me. There was only pity for a pathetic, weak-willed man who had allowed his mother to destroy everything he ever touched.
He pounded louder.
“Maya! The police came to the apartment! They arrested Mom! They’re looking for me too! Please, you have to drop the charges! You have to tell them it was all a misunderstanding!”
The sound of his voice grew frantic, desperate, and pathetic.
“We were going to get married! We were going to have a family! Please, Maya, don't do this to us!”
I calmly tapped the intercom button on my phone app, speaking directly through the porch speaker so my voice echoed down into the night.
“The wedding was called off the moment your mother put her hands on my stomach, Ethan,” I said, my voice steady and cold. “And you signed your own arrest warrant the moment you decided to forge my signature.”
Ethan froze, staring blankly up at the security camera lens.
“Maya... I’m sorry. Mom made me do it. She pressured me!” he wept openly now, his voice cracking. “I love you! Please!”
“Save it for the judge,” I replied.
A few moments later, the wail of police sirens cut through the quiet suburban night. Red and blue lights flashed against my living room windows as two Dallas police cruisers pulled up sharply into my driveway, their headlights illuminating Ethan as he turned around in sheer panic.
May you like
I watched on my phone screen as officers stepped out of the cruisers, ordered Ethan to put his hands behind his back, and slapped the cold steel handcuffs onto his wrists. He didn't fight back. He slumped forward, defeated, as they led him away toward the back of the patrol car.
I locked my phone screen, set it gently on the nightstand, and slid back under the covers.
