I Gave My Mother-in-Law a Kidney, and My Husband Served Me Divorce Papers Before the Anesthesia Had Left My Blood. By Nightfall, He Learned the Woman He Used Was the Only Person Standing Between His Family and Ruin.

I frowned.

“What’s happening?”

Lenora gestured toward a chair.

“One final piece.”

My stomach tightened.

I had come to despise envelopes.

Talia placed one on the table.

Yellowed.

Sealed.

Across the front, written in black fountain pen:

TO BE OPENED IF THADDIUS OR MARISOL BROMEL CONTEST THE LINEAL DESCENDANT PROVISION.

I stared.

“Enoch wrote that?”

“In 2001,” Talia said.

Lenora looked troubled.

“I have never seen what’s inside.”

“Why now?”

“Because Thad filed an appeal last week.”

I laughed without humor.

“Of course he did.”

Talia broke the seal.

Inside were three documents.

A letter.

Two laboratory reports.

And an amended codicil.

Talia began reading silently.

Then stopped.

Her face changed.

In eleven years of knowing her, I had never seen Talia Brennan speechless.

“What?”

She looked at Lenora.

“Oh my God.”

Lenora stiffened.

“What is it?”

Talia handed her the letter.

Lenora read.

Her eyes widened.

Then she looked at me.

“No.”

“What?”

She covered her mouth.

Talia finally spoke.

“Enoch conducted private DNA testing.”

“On whom?”

“Thad and Marisol.”

I frowned.