I Craved Crawfish, but He Fed It All to My Sister Chapter 07

I Craved Crawfish, but He Fed It All to My Sister Chapter 07

The first month after leaving Derek was brutal.

I checked into a trauma rehabilitation center out of state.

I woke up at night in cold sweats.

The sound of that bathroom water sloshing wouldn’t stop echoing in my ears.

My legs hurt whenever cold water hit them. Eating made the wound in my throat flare up over and over.

The worst episode sent my fever close to a hundred and four.

My phone was open to Derek’s number. For six years, he’d been the first person I called every time I got sick.

My finger was already on the button. I hung up before it connected.

I called the on-call doctor at the rehab center instead.

That was the first time I survived a fever alone.

Derek messaged me every day. He had the bathroom at the house demolished. He redid the nursery. He sent

boxes and boxes of the clothes, jewelry, and supplements I used to like.

I sent every single thing back.

The more he sent, the clearer it became that he still didn’t understand.

I didn’t need money. I didn’t need gifts. I needed him to stop choosing someone else every time it mattered.

The hospital designated by the police re-examined Maren.

The results showed she never had leukemia.

The original sample came from a different terminal patient.

Maren had paid off a staff member to swap the name and identification info, then used the fake report to get

her detention measures changed.

The news didn’t surprise me.

She was afraid of pain. Afraid of scars. She made Derek carry her to the ER over a tiny cut on her wrist. How could someone like that just sit there and accept a terminal diagnosis?

But Derek went silent for a long time.

“Could the report be wrong?”

Even at that point, he was still instinctively looking for excuses for her.

I didn’t argue.

“Check it yourself.”

That night, Derek revoked her bail and turned over his chat logs with Maren, transaction records, and the personnel arrangements for the old house to the police.

Maren was formally taken into custody.

The evidence of her buying the crawfish, hiring the men, installing the camera, and forging the notes and

medical records was all recovered.

The next day, Derek had his lawyer deliver a signed divorce settlement.

Beyond the legally mandated division of assets, he also listed the house and his personal equity earnings as

compensation.

I kept only what I was legally entitled to. I crossed out everything else.

Evan asked, “Are you sure?”

I signed my name. “You can settle money. You can’t settle a life.”

A month later, I was preparing to leave for an international rehab center overseas.

As the plane began taxiing, Derek called.

It was the first time he’d contacted me through an unfamiliar number since the protection order took effect. “Sloane, I found the file from the mountain accident ten years ago.”

The overhead announcement told passengers to switch off their phones.

I stared at the terminal sliding past outside the window. “That’s your history. My name’s in the file.”

My hand stopped over the power button.

Derek’s voice finally broke. “The person who saved me back then might not have been Maren.”