My Husband Framed Me to Steal Our Twins

Today was our tenth wedding anniversary.

I wore the silver watch Dominick bought me five years ago when he won his first regional title. It was the only nice thing I still had on. I thought we might go to dinner. Maybe talk about the kids, or finally talk about us.

Instead, his manager, Finnegan Hughes, called me that morning. He said we needed to meet in his Midtown office for "post-championship financial planning."

When the elevator doors opened on the forty-second floor, the lobby smelled like expensive citrus and leather. I walked down the hall to the main conference room.

Dominick was already there.

He sat at the end of a long, dark wood table. Dominick Taylor, the WBC World Heavyweight Champion. He wore a crisp black suit that cost more than my father’s gym brought in for a whole year. His massive shoulders were still, his jaw tight.

Finnegan stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He held a lowball glass of scotch, swirling the amber liquid so the ice cubes clinked softly.

Dominick didn't stand up. He didn't look at my eyes.

"Sit down, Lorelai," he said.

I pulled out a leather chair and sat. The room was freezing. "Dom? What’s going on? Where are Asher and Adley?"

Without answering, Dominick slid a thick stack of papers across the polished table. It stopped right in front of me.

"Sign it," he said. His voice was completely flat. Rehearsed.

I looked down at the top page. The bold black letters at the top punched the breath right out of my lungs: *MARITAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT AND DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.*

My hands went cold. I turned the pages, my fingers catching on the crisp paper.

Zero spousal support. Zero split of the prize purses or the Brooklyn brownstone. A strict nondisclosure agreement with a million-dollar penalty for every breach. Full, permanent legal and physical custody of our four-year-old twins to Dominick.

Then came the last clause. It said I agreed to release a public statement admitting I had been unfaithful, taking full blame for the collapse of the marriage.

A laugh tore out of my throat, sharp and ugly. "Are you insane?"

Dominick didn't flinch.

"I gave you ten years, Dom," I said, my voice shaking so hard the papers rattled in my grip. "I wrapped your hands in freezing basements. I sold my mom's rings so you could eat. I almost died on an operating table giving you Asher and Adley. And you want me to give up my children? You want me to tell the world I ruined this?"

Finnegan took a slow sip of his scotch. He didn't say a word. He just watched, like a spectator ringside.

"You're not fit to raise them," Dominick said coldly. "You're unstable, Lorelai. The press knows it. Everyone knows it."

"Because of the lies you and Solana feed them!" The name felt like acid on my tongue. "I won't sign this. Take me to court. Let a judge see what you're doing."

I pushed the papers back across the table.

Dominick stared at me for a second. Then he reached under a leather folder and pulled out a thick manila envelope. He tossed it onto the wood. It landed with a dull thud.

"Open it," he said.

I pulled the flap open. Inside were police reports, glossy photographs, and bank slips. They were forged, but they were good. They showed underground, illegal bare-knuckle fights from fifteen years ago. Every single document pointed directly to one man: Connor Sanders.

My father.

My chest caved in. My father was the most honorable man in South Boston. He was the man who took a beaten, starving ten-year-old Dominick off the streets and gave him a life. He had shattered his own hand with a weight plate just to protect me from loan sharks. His name, his gym, his coaching license—it was all he left me when he died.

"What is this?" I whispered.

"It’s an investigation," Dominick said, leaning in. His face was only inches from mine. I could see the faint scar on his cheek from his first title fight. "Finnegan has journalists ready to run it tomorrow morning. We’ll send it to the state athletic commission. They’ll strip your dad of his license posthumously. They’ll take his name off the wall at the Boston Garden. He'll go down in history as a corrupt criminal."

"You bastard," I choked out, tears burning my eyes. "He was a father to you."

"Sign the papers, Lorelai," Dominick said softly. "Or I’ll make sure no one remembers your father as anything but a cheat."

Finnegan leaned against the window frame and gave me a thin, tight smile.

They had me. They knew where to hit, and they hit to kill. I could survive losing the money. I could survive being broke. But I could not let them desecrate the only decent thing that had ever belonged to me.

My vision blurred. A tear dropped onto the contract, darkening the white paper.

Dominick held out a heavy black pen.

I took it. My fingers trembled so violently I could barely grip the metal. I turned the pages. Initial. Initial. Initial.

Then the final page.

I signed my name. *Lorelai Sanders.*

I dropped the pen on the table. It rolled and clicked against Dominick’s cufflink. He didn't say thank you. He just pulled the papers toward his chest and checked every signature with cold, clinical eyes.

I stood up. My knees felt like water, but I forced myself to walk out of that room without looking back.

The glass doors of the lobby pushed open, and the freezing November air hit me like a slap. Manhattan was gray. It was pouring rain, cold and relentless.

I walked out onto the sidewalk and stopped.

I had no car. No home to go back to. No savings. My children were miles away in a penthouse I was legally barred from entering. In my coat pocket, the folded copies of the divorce decree pressed hard against my ribs.

A yellow cab roared past the curb, its tires hitting a massive puddle. A wave of dirty street water splashed over the sidewalk, soaking my leather boots and the cuffs of my jeans.

I didn't move. I didn't even flinch.

I stood there in the freezing rain, drenched, staring at the gray city sky.

I had built a champion out of nothing. I had given him my youth, my blood, and my soul. And now, the empire I built with my own bare hands had locked the gates and thrown me into the gutter.