He Forged My Name to Give Away Our Home, So I Gave Away His Chapter 10

He Forged My Name to Give Away Our Home, So I Gave Away His Chapter 10

I didn’t take the old lady’s sedan.

I instructed the moving truck to head to my new apartment downtown, while I made one final stop

back at the new base house.

Chloe was on the front porch, unlocking the door.

Seeing me approach, her hand tightened around the brass key ring.

“What are you doing back here?”

“Reclaiming what belongs to me,” I said evenly.

She shifted her body, blocking the doorway completely.

“This property is currently registered to me.”

“The bricks don’t belong to you, Chloe.”

“My name is printed flat on the assignment sheet!”

I looked

past her shoulder at the card taped to the frame. “Printing a name on a piece of paper doesn’t make the property yours. You people forged my name on a legal deed; printing a fake

assignment sheet seems right up your alley.”

Chloe’s expression turned venomous.

From inside the living room, the officer’s sister peeked out.

“Mrs. Bennett, you are crossing a line here.”

“Entering my own marital home constitutes crossing a line?” I challenged.

The sister went quiet, unable to find a retort.

Chloe exhaled a sharp, calculated breath.

“What exactly are you here to take, Ava?”

“I want to inspect the interior.”

“Absolutely not.”

I let out a soft laugh.

“What exactly are you hiding inside my house, Chloe?”

She pressed her back firmly against the door.

I pulled out my phone.

“Fine. I’ll dial the housing authority right now.”

“Go ahead,” she sneered. “No one is going to evict an officer on a Friday night.”

“Let her inside,” Ethan’s voice rang out from the bottom of the porch steps.

Chloe snapped her head around.

“Ethan!”

Ethan stood at the walkway, his uniform rumpled, his face looking thoroughly exhausted.

“Let her inside, Chloe.”

Chloe slowly stepped aside, her jaw clenched.

The interior of the house looked completely different from the sketches I had spent months dreaming about.

The curtains were a pastel cream.

The sofa was a plush, soft fabric variant that Chloe always preferred.

On the dining table sat her row of prescription bottles, and on the coffee table lay Ethan’s favorite silver Zippo lighter.

The master bedroom door stood half-open, revealing a brand-new duvet spread across the

mattress.

Standing in the center of the living room, I felt a sudden wave of dark, mocking amusement.

Ethan walked in behind me.

“Whatever you’re looking for, Ava, tell me. I’ll help you find it.”

I walked down the hallway, stopping before the small extra room that was supposed to be my pharmacy study.

Taped to the door was a printed label: Storage Room.

I pushed the door open.

The

space was packed to the ceiling with Chloe’s luggage, boxes of clothes, and two large, wrapped

wooden cabinets.

The shipping label on the crates read: Recipient: Ava Bennett.

Daisy rushed in through the front door, stopping right behind me. Seeing the crates, her eyes

turned instantly red.

“They’re using your custom medicine cabinets to store her extra luggage?! This is sick!”

Chloe rushed into the room, her voice frantic with justification. “I had no idea those belonged to

you, Ava!”

I pointed directly to the bold black ink on the manifest.

“My name is printed right here on the delivery slip.”

“The movers just dumped everything in this room when we arrived! I didn’t inspect the labels!” she

cried.

I turned around to look at my husband.

“And you didn’t notice either, Ethan?”

Ethan stared at the wooden cabinets, his expression blank, as if seeing them for the very first time.

“I… I ordered those custom-built for you, Ava.”

“I know you did,” I said softly. “You were busy ordering them for me with one hand, while handing

the keys of the house over to her with the other.”

His head dropped slightly, his voice cracking.

“Ava… I will resolve this property issue.”

“How?”

“I’ll order Chloe to vacate the premises.”

Chloe snapped her head around, her eyes widening in absolute shock.

“Ethan!”

Ethan kept his eyes pinned to the floor, refusing to look at her.

“Right now?” I pushed.

He went dead silent.

I let out a clear, cold laugh.

Tears finally spilled over Chloe’s lower lids.

“Fine! I’ll pack! I’ll move out tonight!”

The officer’s sister panicked, grabbing her arm. “Chloe, look at your medical chart! You can’t handle heavy lifting right now!”

Chloe ignored her, staring directly at Ethan with utter betrayal.

Are you satisfied now, Ethan? I waited three long years for you while you were stationed back east! You swore to mne you’d make it up to me! You promised me I wouldn’t be left stranded! Now she throws one public tantrum, and you toss me out onto the street?”

I looked at Ethan.

“You promised her that?”

Ethan couldn’t find his tongue.

Chloe let out a sharp, hysterical laugh. “Ava Bennett, do you honestly think you won something

here? He only married you because his family demanded the alliance! He stayed with you out of pure duty! The person he holds closest in his heart has never, ever been you!”

Daisy snarled, “Shut your mouth!”

Chloe pointed a trembling finger toward the master bedroom.

“This entire house layout… the very first sketches he drew were for me! That little pharmacy room of yours? That was just an afterthought he tacked on later to appease your complaints!”

I walked over to the coffee table, picking up Ethan’s silver Zippo lighter.

“Ethan,” I said, my voice cutting through her shouting. “Is what she’s saying true?”

Ethan’s face turned an ugly shade of gray.

“It’s not what it looks like, Ava.”

“Then what does it look like?”

He took a desperate step toward me.

“Chloe and I… we had loose ends from our past deployment that weren’t properly resolved. But I never, ever intended to end our marriage.”

“You never intended to end our marriage, so you just identity-thefted my name instead?” I asked.

“I was trying to keep her stable!” he roared defensively.

‘By using me as the currency?”

His chest heaved, his voice exploding across the room.

“She took a shrapnel blast to save my life, Ava!”

I carefully laid the silver Zippo back down onto the wood.

“And how many times did I save your life, Ethan?”

He froze, his mouth dropping open.

“When your ulcers flared up and the doctors told you the pain meds were destroying your stomach

lining, I stayed awake for three consecutive nights monitoring your vitals,” I said, my voice dead

calm. “When your training lacerations became severely infected, I spent seventy-two hours

straight packing the wounds and checking your temperature every twenty minutes. When your father suffered his acute coronary episode, I was the one who re-drafted his pharmaceutical charts

three times to ensure he survived the night.”

His lips trembled, but no sound came out.

“I saved your life plenty of times, Ethan,” I whispered. “The only difference is, I didn’t use my

service record to force you into stealing from an innocent woman.”

Chloe’s face turned an immediate, deathly shade of gray.

The front porch outside was now completely packed with listening neighbors.

Mrs. Higgins whispered from the step, “She’s speaking absolute facts.”

The officer’s sister glared at her.

“Keep your mouth shut, Higgins!”

Heavy, frantic footsteps rattled up the porch stairs.

Two family support staff members marched into the living room, dragging a disheveled Mr. Davis

between them.

The clerk’s uniform was unbuttoned, his face covered in a cold sweat. The moment he saw Ethan, his knees practically buckled.

“Major! I can’t do it! I can’t keep this hidden anymore! I quit!”

Ethan turned around sharply.

“What are you talking about?”

Mr. Davis reached into his jacket, pulling out a crumpled manila envelope and thrusting it forway).

“I never filed the original waiver into the headquarters archive! I was terrified of a federal investigation, so I kept the original copy hidden in my personal safe!”

Chloe lunged forward like a feral animal.

“Mr. Davis, have you completely lost your mind?!”

Mr. Davis scrambled backward, hiding behind the support staff.

“Captain Vance, you were the one who told me the Major had full authorization! You swore up and

down that they had settled the matter as husband and wife, and that you just needed the signature

processed through the system! That’s the only reason I let you run the paperwork!”

I reached out, taking the manila envelope from his hands.

My fingers were perfectly steady.

“Who physically signed my name to this document?” I asked.

Mr. Davis looked at Ethan, then looked at Chloe, his voice cracking with pure terror.

“Think very carefully before you speak!” Chloe shrieked.

Colonel Sterling stepped into the living room, his uniform immaculate.

“Mr. Davis, the retired General is waiting in the vehicle outside for the absolute truth. Choose your

next words wisely.”

The clerk broke down, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

“It was the Major! Major Miller wrote it! Captain Vance brought in a stack of Mrs. Bennett’s old

pharmacy logs from the clinic database, and told him to copy the script style exactly!”

Ethan snapped his head around to stare at Chloe, his eyes wide with horror.

“The pharmacy logs…?”

Chloe took a sharp step back, her back hitting the wall.

“I didn’t… I never…”

I unsealed the envelope, sliding out the original waiver form.

The pen indentations on the paper were incredibly deep, carved with heavy force.

I pulled the formal document from the downtown forensic lab out of my purse, laying it flat directly

over the forgery.

“Ethan,” I said, looking up at my husband. “The certified lab results just arrived.”

He stared down at the two pieces of paper, the final drop of color completely evaporating from his

flesh.

“Now,” I asked, my voice echoing like ice cracking across a winter lake, “are you still going to tell me this is a private family matter?”

He lifted his eyes to mine, his voice entirely broken.

“Ava… let me explain.”

I looked at him, realizing that every single memory of his tenderness over the last three years had just turned completely putrid.

“Explain what, Ethan?”

“Explain why I wrote your name.”

“Fine,” I said, pressing my hand flat against the forged deed. “Then tell me, Ethan… when you carved the letters of my name into this paper, whose face were you looking at in your mind? Mine…

or hers?”