PART 2
I waited until Wyatt fell asleep and took the computer to the dining room. Javier always protected it as if it were a state secret.
That night, after seeing the notification, his obsession with privacy stopped bothering me. The screen asked for a password.
I tried familiar dates until I typed Lydia’s birthday. It opened on the first try.
The first thing I found was his online banking. In three months, he had transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to his mother’s account.
The descriptions read: “for your jewelry,” “savings for the land,” and “from your son.” His salary wasn’t even enough for a third of those amounts.
Then another name appeared: Brittany Ross. Every week she received deposits for rent, clothes, medical appointments, and baby cravings.
I felt my stomach clench. I opened WhatsApp Web.
Brittany had written that same afternoon: “Hurry up and get Naomi’s signature. The seller isn’t going to hold onto the truck forever. Your son and I deserve better.”
Javier replied: “My mom is already pressuring her. I’ll tell her that my company is about to go bankrupt and that we need to mortgage the apartment. The country girl always ends up signing.”
I kept reading, even though each message was a wound. Lydia knew about the relationship.
She visited Brittany, brought her vitamins, and celebrated that she was expecting a child. In one audio message, Lydia spoke clearly about their grand scheme.
“When we get the loan, we will kick her out of her own house,” Lydia said in the recording. “We will use the money to pay for a truck, a new apartment, and Javier’s debts.”
But there was something worse.
Four years earlier, I had given Javier $80,000 to open an agency. Six months later, he returned crying, claiming his partners had swindled him.
The bank statements proved that the company never existed. The money ended up being used to buy a plot of land in Flagstaff, registered in Lydia’s name.
I understood the whole charade: my mother-in-law’s fabricated illnesses, the urgent loans, the late-night meetings, and the supposed clients. While I worked until dawn, they were building a parallel life with my money.
Even the vacations Javier called training trips had been romantic getaways paid for with fake invoices charged to my company. My phone rang.
It was Javier.
“Give me back my computer now,” Javier demanded. “If you open a file, I’m going to report you.”
I activated the recording.
“Are you worried about the contract to mortgage my apartment?” I asked. “Or are you worried about the messages about your son with Brittany?”
From the other side, only his breathing could be heard.
“Naomi, I can explain,” Javier said.
“Explain it to the judge,” I replied.
I copied bank statements, conversations, photos, audio recordings, and contracts onto three USB drives. Then I sent everything to Kimberly Paige, a lawyer specializing in divorce and property fraud.
The next morning, Javier and Lydia arrived feigning remorse. When I didn’t answer the door, their pleas turned to threats.
They demanded half the apartment and one hundred thousand dollars in exchange for signing the divorce papers. Then Kimberly called me.
“Naomi, I found something in the land documents,” Kimberly said. “Javier didn’t act alone. There’s a firm involved that could turn this divorce into a criminal investigation.”
I peered through the peephole as Lydia smiled in the hallway, convinced she could still destroy me. What neither of them knew was that the person who had signed with Javier was about to betray them.
