“It’s already been transferred, Claire. Thank you. You did an excellent job. And special thanks for the photographs of you and Andrew holding each other so tenderly. They were extremely useful when I had to convince the investors that he no longer qualified as a trustworthy business partner.”
Andrew’s gaze darted from me to Claire and back again.
His mouth opened, then closed.
It was as if he had forgotten how speech worked.
In a matter of minutes, the world he had taken for granted collapsed before his eyes.
The bakeries.
The house.
The money.
The feeling that he possessed limitless power.
Everything was gone.
All that remained was his stunned mother and the unbearable knowledge that the woman he had compared to a piece of furniture had outplayed him completely.
“You… But you agreed to let her stay here!” he finally rasped, clutching the edge of the table.
“I still don’t object, Andrew. The two of you are welcome to live here as long as you like.”
He stared at me, confused.
“Only the new tenants are arriving tomorrow morning. I’ve already rented the house to a company holding a large celebration here. So you have roughly ten minutes to gather whatever you need and vacate the property.”
I glanced at Margaret.
“Don’t forget your mother. Somehow, I think she would be perfectly suited to a small apartment somewhere on the outskirts.”
I stepped out onto the porch.
A few minutes later, Andrew appeared by the gate.
He was carrying Claire’s suitcase—the one she had somehow abandoned in her rush to leave.
I watched in silence as he nervously tried to force the clothes into the trunk of his old car.
For the first time in ten years of marriage, I felt absolutely no pity for him.
Not even a trace.
There was only a cold, quiet disgust.
I was no longer a convenient piece of furniture that could be dragged from one place to another whenever someone felt like rearranging the room.
That evening, I finally cleared my life of all the rotten, useless wreckage that had occupied it for far too long.