After leaving my parents' place, I drove back to our complex.
I'd just parked and was about to head inside when I ran straight into Leah and Roland.
Leah's face was livid. The moment she saw me, she charged over.
"Clark Gilbert, what the hell is this supposed to mean?!"
"What gives you the right to freeze my card?!"
I looked at her coldly.
"Get one thing straight. That's my card."
"If I freeze my own card, do I need to file a report with you?"
Leah flushed red with rage, and for a long moment she had no idea how to fire back.
Roland saw it and stepped forward at once, sliding an arm around her shoulders.
"What do you mean, your card?"
"Clark Gilbert, don't think I don't know. Leah told me everything. The life you've been living all these years, you owe it all to her, out there working herself to the bone."
"I never imagined you'd be this ungrateful, using the marriage to get your hands on Leah's money!"
He turned to her, his face full of tenderness.
"Leah, a man like this doesn't deserve you."
"All he'll ever do is drag you down. You should just hurry up and divorce him!"
I laughed to myself. A few days ago he was calling her ma'am, and now it was Leah this, Leah that.
It was rush hour, and neighbors were streaming in and out of the complex.
Hearing the argument over here, they stopped one by one and gathered around.
The second Roland saw the crowd, his eyes went red and his finger jabbed at me.
"Everyone, please, be the judge of this."
"He promised he'd support me all the way through college."
"But right before the term started, he suddenly said if I wanted the money to keep coming, I had to do whatever he told me."
"To go... to go and keep company with those rich women he set me up with!"
"If Leah hadn't stepped in and offered to sponsor me for free, I might've..."
Roland clapped a hand over his mouth, the very picture of a man who'd suffered some terrible wrong.
The neighbors' eyes on me changed in an instant.
"Oh my. He always looks so respectable, and behind closed doors he's running a scheme like this!"
"You really can't judge a book by its cover. Looks like such a fine young man, and his heart's this rotten."
"Exactly. He's got a kid of his own, how can he be so cruel to somebody else's child!"
Listening to the muttering around us, Leah stepped closer and said in a low voice, a note of smugness in it,
"Clark Gilbert, you hear that? The people always see the truth."
"I'm warning you. Unfreeze that card right now and I can still smooth things over for you. Don't let this blow up into something you can't clean up."
"And stop giving Roland a hard time, or I really will think about divorcing you!"
I looked at Leah and laughed out loud.
"Fine."
"Let's divorce. But you walk away with nothing."
Leah froze.
Roland suddenly shrieked.
"Clark Gilbert, in your dreams!"
"You're nothing but an idle, kept-man parasite. Every cent of it is Leah's!"
"If anyone's walking away with nothing, it should be you!"
I looked at him and gave a soft sneer.
"Roland, I know you want to land yourself a rich woman."
"But before you moved in on my wife, didn't you ever run a background check?"
"Take a good look at who's actually earning the money in this house!"
