Chapter 11
Karma came faster than expected.
Theodore’s cousin called with the news-he’d suffered a massive stroke and was in the ICU.
The doctors said even with the best recovery, he’d be partially paralyzed for life.
Theodore was handled. Now it was Ava’s turn.
I had a contact at a rental agency who gave me Ava’s new address.
I immediately passed it along to the loan sharks.
By the time I drove over to check out the scene, those thugs were already dragging Ava and both boys out of some run-down apartment building.
The head collector was backhanding her, blood trickling from her mouth.
“Did you really think you could just disappear and we’d forget about you?”
Ava dropped to her knees and grabbed his leg.
‘I’ll pay! I swear I can get your money-just give me a little more time!”
‘Fine, let’s hear your timeline. But if you don’t deliver, we’ll have to get creative about payment methods.” The guy had this sick grin on his face.
Ava was about to spin some lie when Tom cut her off from his spot on the pavement.
‘She’s dead broke. Blew the whole money on plastic surgery so she could whore herself out online in Thailand or something.”
Tom’s eyes were ice-cold as he stared his mother down.
The collectors perked up immediately.
The leader grabbed Ava’s chin and studied her face. “Two hundred and eighty grand? Yeah, I can see where the money went. Not bad.”
‘Baby girl, if you wanted to work overseas, you should’ve just asked. We’ve got all the right connections.”
Come take a ride with us. We’ll set you up real nice in Southeast Asia-you’ll make bank.”
Ava went pale as she realized what they were suggesting.
‘No! God, no! I can work from home-webcam stuff. Please, I can make your money back!”
A crowd had gathered to watch the show, but nobody was about to play hero.
Ava thrashed around desperately-she knew exactly what happened to girls who got “taken overseas.”
‘You can’t do this! I’ve got two special needs kids-they need me!”
That’s when someone in the crowd recognized her.
‘Holy shit, isn’t that the psycho bitch who beat her disabled kids?”
“Fuck! And she has the nerve to use her sons as an excuse!”
“Get this trash out of our neighborhood!”
As they hauled her toward their van, Ava screamed at Tom with pure hatred.
“You little piece of shit! I should’ve let you die when you were born! You ungrateful—”
Chapter 11
They slammed the van door, cutting her off mid-rant.
I drove home and went back to my regular routine. Theodore and Ava slowly became distant memories.
A few weeks later, I was out shopping with a colleague when we walked through this underground pedestrian tunnel.
There was this filthy homeless guy sitting by the wall.
His left arm was all twisted and useless, trembling constantly.
He was mechanically rocking back and forth. “Help me out… anything you can spare…”
My coworker’s face crumpled with sympathy. “Oh God, that’s heartbreaking.”
he started digging for her wallet.
grabbed her arm. “Don’t. Half these guys are running scams.”
steered her away, but not before getting a good look at his face.
heodore.
ife’s funny, isn’t it? Your biological sons ended up as beggars, and here you are following in their footsteps.
lis cousin had filled me in a month earlier.
he Quinn family got tired of dealing with his diapers and drool.
‘lus they’d blown through their savings covering his medical bills and legal fees from the Lily mess.
o they just dumped him on the street like garbage.
bout a week later, I was doing research online when this sleazy pop-up ad appeared.
Hot Girls. Fast Cards. Are You In?”
Obviously some sketchy Southeast Asian gambling site.
ut the woman in the ad looked weirdly familiar…
squinted at the screen and nearly spit out my coffee-it was Ava!
he was in some barely-there bikini, rubbing her chest right into the camera
Looks like she really did become a cam girl. As for which country she’s in now-who knows.
Tom and Tommy? They vanished completely. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of them since.
Winter break rolled around, and I went to meet my boys at Union Station.
I spotted them from way across the terminal-two tall, confident young men jogging toward me with their duffel bags.
“Mom!”
“Mom!”
And that, I realized, is what pure happiness sounds like.
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