Chapter 5: The Thirty-Day Notice

For several seconds after I closed the door, I stood there with my hand still resting on the lock.

On the other side, Luke didn't move.

Neither did Maya.

Then came a sharp knock.

“Elena, open the door.”

I walked away without answering.

Another knock followed, harder this time.

“You can't just throw us out!”

I stopped halfway up the stairs.

Us.

He had finally said it.

Not Luke and Elena.

Not the couple who had spent years planning a life together.

Us.

Luke and Maya.

I continued upstairs.

My phone rang before I reached my bedroom.

My attorney.

“I saw the delivery confirmation,” he said. “Good. Don't get into a verbal argument with either of them. Let them communicate through me if they have legal questions.”

“They'll probably try to convince me the notice doesn't mean anything.”

“Let them try. Your documentation is what matters.”

I thanked him and ended the call.

For once, I wasn't afraid of what would happen next.

I opened my laptop and created a new folder.

Bank statements.

Mortgage documents.

Property records.

Credit-card statements.

Every message where Luke had asked me to pay something.

Every transfer I'd made for him.

Every bill I'd covered while he promised he'd pay me back.

I saved everything.

Then I opened the folder containing the house documents.

The purchase agreement was still there.

The twelve-thousand-dollar deposit stared back at me.

For months, Luke had told me that losing it would be devastating.

But now I realized something.

He wasn't upset because we had lost our dream home.

He was upset because he had lost access to my money.

A soft knock came at my bedroom door.

I didn't answer.

The door opened anyway.

Maya stood there.

Her eyes were swollen from crying.

“Can I come in?”

I closed the laptop.

“You already did that once. You moved into my home without paying anything, and apparently you moved into my fiancé's marriage without telling me.”

Her face crumpled.

“It wasn't supposed to happen like this.”

I stared at her.

“How was it supposed to happen?”

She didn't answer.

That silence told me more than an explanation ever could.

“When did it start?” I asked.

Maya looked down at her hands.

“It wasn't like that at first.”

“That's not what I asked.”

She swallowed.

“Luke and I got close after I moved in.”

A bitter laugh escaped me.

“How convenient.”

“Elena, I was lonely.”

“So was I.”

She looked up.

For the first time, there was no carefully controlled sadness on her face.

There was guilt.

Real guilt.

“He said you were already drifting apart,” she whispered.

My chest tightened.

Luke had told her that?

“He said you were more like roommates than a couple.”

I stared at her.

For months, Luke had been telling me he was stressed from work, that he needed space, that our relationship felt different because we were preparing for marriage.

All the while, he had been telling Maya a completely different story.

“Did he tell you he was still planning to marry me?”

Maya's silence was answer enough.

I stood.

“Get out of my room.”

“Elena—”

“You have thirty days. Use them to find somewhere else to live.”

She wiped her cheeks.

“Where am I supposed to go?”

I looked at her for a long moment.

“That's no longer my problem.”

She left.

A few minutes later, I heard the front door slam.

I walked to the window.

Luke and Maya stood in the driveway, arguing.

He pointed toward the house.

She shook her head.

Then Luke looked up.

Our eyes met through the glass.

He raised his phone.

A message appeared on my screen.

“You have no idea what you've just started.”

I read it twice.

Then I smiled.

For the first time, his threat didn't scare me.

Because I had spent six years building a future.

And if Luke and Maya thought they could destroy it simply by stealing the man I loved, they were about to learn something important.

They had taken my fiancé.

They had not taken my future.