Chapter 3 - The Cold Welcome Home
The drive back to our suburban home in the hills was agonizingly quiet. The afternoon sun beat down on the windshield, but I felt only an icy numbness spreading through my chest.
When I pulled into the driveway, Jason’s European sports car was already parked crookedly across the double-wide concrete. He hadn’t even bothered to park straight in his panic.
I parked the loaner car, took a deep breath to steady my nerves, and pushed open the front door.
The house was dead silent.
“Jason?” I called out, my voice echoing off the hardwood foyer.
He appeared at the top of the curved staircase a second later, loosening his silk tie with jerky, impatient movements. His face was flushed, a sheen of nervous sweat glistening on his forehead. He didn't look like the confident, rising tech executive who gave keynote speeches at corporate tech summits. He looked like a cornered animal trying to calculate its escape.
“Chloe! Where have you been? Are you out of your mind ignoring my calls?” Jason rushed down the stairs, his voice rising in an aggressive pitch. “Do you have any idea what kind of chaos you’re causing? Security called me from the clinic, and now you’re dragging the police into some ridiculous vandalism report?”
I stood in the entryway, slowly closing the front door behind me. I didn't take off my shoes. I didn't rush to soothe him the way I used to during his stressful work weeks. I simply stared at him—truly stared at him—for the first time in three years.
“Chaos, Jason?” I repeated quietly, stepping into the light of the foyer. “My car was destroyed. Someone carved vulgarities into the metal, smashed every window, and tore apart our unborn daughter’s car seat. And your first reaction is to worry about what kind of chaos I’m causing?”
Jason stopped halfway down the steps, a flicker of guilt crossing his face before it was quickly replaced by defensive bluster.
“Look, I talked to Chelsea,” he admitted, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper. “She’s... she’s very upset, Chloe. She says you cornered her at the office last week, that you threatened her job, that you’ve been making her life a living hell with your paranoid delusions about our marriage.”
A cold, humorless laugh escaped my lips.
“I threatened her?” I stepped closer to the stairs, looking up at him with unblinking eyes. “Jason, I haven’t spoken two words to Chelsea in six months. But she has been posting photos of your anniversary dinners on her open Instagram, sending passive-aggressive text messages to my personal phone, and apparently, spending her afternoon taking smiling selfies while vandalizing my vehicle.”
Jason flinched. The color drained from his face. “You... you saw the photos? You saw the footage?”
“Every single second of it,” I replied evenly. “The parking garage has high-definition security cameras, Jason. The police have the video. Chelsea used a tire iron to smash my windows. She carved ‘Homewrecker’ into the hood. She destroyed the baby seat. And she smiled while she did it.”
For a terrifying, surreal moment, Jason didn't look panicked. He looked annoyed.
He ran a hand through his hair and let out a long, dismissive sigh.
“Alright! Fine! So she lost her temper!” Jason snapped, descending the remaining steps and throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Chelsea is under a lot of stress at the firm! We’ve been working twenty-hour days closing the Series B funding round! You sitting at home, pregnant and obsessed, pushing your insecurities onto my professional life—it drove her to a breaking point!”
He actually blamed me.
The man I had married, the man I had fed, supported, and quietly bankrolled during his early startup days when he couldn’t afford rent, was standing in our foyer defending the woman who had just tried to terrorize his pregnant wife and unborn child.
“Her breaking point,” I whispered, my voice trembling with a rage so pure and hot it felt like liquid fire. “She destroyed our daughter’s car seat, Jason. She left a message telling my baby she isn't wanted.”
Jason waved a hand dismissively, stepping toward the kitchen. “Oh, stop being so dramatic, Chloe. It’s just plastic and straps. I’ll buy another one on Amazon tonight. Just call Detective Guzman and drop the charges. Tell them it was a prank or a random insurance scam. We can’t afford a public scandal right now. The investors are coming to dinner tomorrow night to finalize the acquisition.”
“Drop the charges?” I asked, my voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper.
“Yes! Drop the charges!” Jason shouted, turning back to face me with a furious scowl. “Unless you want to ruin my career out of pure spite! You’ve never worked a real job in your life, Chloe. You don't understand how fragile corporate reputation is! If the board sees my wife launching a police vendetta against my top assistant over a scratched-up car, they’ll pull funding! Do you want us to be bankrupt? Do you want your baby to grow up with nothing?!”
I tilted my head, looking at him with absolute pity.
“Bankrupt, Jason?” I asked softly. “Let me tell you a little secret about who really pays the mortgage on this house, who funded your startup’s initial seed round, and whose family name keeps your corporate partners from tearing your contracts to shreds.”
Before Jason could sneer or interrupt, my cell phone buzzed loudly on the entryway table.
I glanced down at the screen.
Incoming Call: Commissioner Gavin Potter.
I answered it immediately on speakerphone.
“Chloe, sweetheart,” my father’s deep, commanding voice boomed through the quiet foyer. “I’m sitting with Captain Miller and the District Attorney’s senior prosecutor. We have the security footage, the forensic report from the garage, and a signed arrest warrant for Chelsea Monroe for felony vandalism, stalking, and terroristic threats against a protected pregnant citizen. Do you want us to pick her up at her apartment, or should we bring her in straight from her office?”
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Jason froze. The color completely vanished from his face, leaving him looking like a corpse. His jaw dropped open, and he stared at my phone as if it were a venomous snake.
“Dad,” I said, never breaking eye contact with my petrified husband, “let’s pick her up at the office. I think my husband would love to watch his star employee answer for her crimes.”
