Chapter 6 - The Ripped Contract
The sound of thick paper tearing in two was like a gunshot in the silent room.
Ryan froze, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open as the two halves of the Deed Transfer & Property Conveyance fell onto the polished mahogany table. Patricia let out a strangled, shrill gasp, springing to her feet so fast her dining chair skidded backward across the oak floor.
“Have you lost your mind?!” Ryan roared, slamming both palms down onto the table with enough force to rattle the coffee cups. “What the hell did you just do?!”
I stacked the torn pieces calmly, one over the other, and tore them in half again. The small white squares fluttered onto the table like snow.
“I told you yesterday,” I said, my voice steady and icy. “I am never signing this house over to you.”
“You useless, crazy bitch!” Patricia shrieked, rounding the table with her hands curled into claws. “After everything Ryan has done for you! After we brought you home from the hospital! You lied to us!”
“I didn't lie,” I said, rising smoothly from my chair, keeping my uninjured right arm forward to protect my bump. “I gave you a chance to prove you had a shred of humanity left. You don't. Both of you are parasites.”
Ryan’s face turned a violent, dark purple. The panic of his looming financial ruin—the bank calling his loans by noon, his creditors filing public liens by 5:00 PM—overwhelmed whatever caution he had left.
He lunged across the table and grabbed my collar, trapping me against the back of the chair.
“You think you can ruin me?!” Ryan hissed, his eyes bloodshot, his breath foul against my face. “You sign those papers or I swear to God, Claire, I will drag you down to the basement and keep you locked there until you deliver that child!”
Patricia stood right behind him, nodding frantically. “Do it, Ryan! Grab her phone! She has no one! Nobody will look for her here!”
I didn't scream. I didn't cry.
I looked up at Ryan’s contorted face and smiled—a slow, terrifyingly calm smile that made his grip on my shirt loosen slightly in hesitation.
“Do you hear that ticking sound, Ryan?” I asked softly.
May you like
Ryan blinked, confused. “What?”
“The clock above the pantry,” I whispered. “Dad built it. But he didn't just put gears inside it.”
