My Cheating Husband Returned From JFK With His Mistress and Their Baby, Demanding I Give Up His Mother’s Mansion—Until He Opened the Final Will Left on the Coffin!

Two weeks later, I received a collect call from the Rikers Island correctional facility. I let the phone ring four times before answering.

""You have a collect call from an inmate at Rikers Island Correctional Facility,"" the automated operator announced. ""Press one to accept.""

I pressed the button.

""Elena?"" Julian’s voice was broken, stripped of all the haughty swagger he had displayed at JFK. The background of the call was filled with the metallic clatter of cell doors, shouting guards, and the echo of concrete corridors. ""Elena, please don't hang up. Please.""

""I'm listening, Julian,"" I said calmly, leaning back in Eleanor’s favorite armchair in the library.

""They're charging me with grand larceny and cross-border bank fraud,"" he sobbed, his voice cracking into high-pitched panic. ""The federal prosecutor says I'm looking at ten years without parole. Elena, I know I was terrible to you. I know what I did with Chloe was unforgivable. But my mother loved me! She couldn't have wanted me to rot in a cell! You have the money now. Arthur told my court-appointed lawyer that you control the entire family trust.""

""I do,"" I replied.

""You can drop the complaint!"" Julian pleaded, his words tumbling out in a frantic rush. ""If you sign a waiver stating that Eleanor authorized those withdrawals as an early gift, the feds will dismiss the embezzlement charges! The Canadian creditors will back off if you use the trust to settle the civil judgment! Elena, I’m begging you! You were my wife for seven years! Doesn't that mean anything to you?""

""It meant everything to me, Julian,"" I said, my voice steady and cold. ""For seven years, I poured my life into making you happy. When your mother couldn't walk, you booked a flight to Montreal. When she cried out for you in the middle of the night, delirious with pain, calling your name over and over again, I was the one who held her hand and lied to her, telling her you were busy on important business so she wouldn't die of a broken heart.""

Silence fell over the line, save for Julian’s ragged breathing.

""You asked me at the airport if that was it,"" I continued. ""You handed me three pages of divorce papers and twenty thousand dollars, convinced you could throw me away like yesterday's trash while Chloe mocked my shoes. You told me Chloe gave you the son I never could. Well, Julian, you gave Chloe a lifetime of shame, and you gave your mother a lonely deathbed.""

""Elena... please..."" he whimpered.

""Your mother didn't leave you a penny because she wanted you to learn the lesson she failed to teach you as a child,"" I said. ""Actions have consequences. Debts must be paid. Serve your time, Julian. Learn what it feels like to be completely alone in an empty room with nothing but your own choices for company.""