Chapter 9 - Paige Chooses a Side
For four days, Paige disappeared.
No calls.
No texts.
No answer at her apartment.
Mom claimed not to know where she was.
Dad’s attorney sent Maya a formal letter demanding that I stop making “defamatory allegations” to relatives.
I had made none.
That did not stop Dad from telling everyone I had.
Family group chats became a war I refused to enter.
Aunt Cheryl sent:
Your father made financial mistakes. Calling police is unforgivable.
Cousin Rachel replied before I could.
Forging her signature is not a “financial mistake.”
Uncle Tom left the chat.
Mom created a new one without me.
Someone added me back.
I muted everything.
On Friday, my hospital manager asked to speak privately.
My stomach sank.
A complaint had been made.
Anonymous.
The caller claimed I was unstable and improperly accessing patient medication.
For three seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
Then training took over.
“Please audit my access.”
My manager blinked.
“What?”
“Every medication pull. Every chart. Every login. Please audit all of it.”
She studied me.
“Sophie, I don’t think—”
“Someone is trying to damage me.”
Her expression sharpened.
“Do you know who?”
“No.”
That was technically true.
I suspected.
But suspicion was not evidence.
The audit cleared me within hours.
The complaint had included details about my work schedule.
Details my parents knew.
Maya documented it.
“Retaliation,” she said.
“Can we prove it?”
“Not yet.”
That phrase became my least favorite sentence.
Not yet.
That evening, someone knocked on our front door.
Paige.
She looked worse than before.
She carried a duffel bag.
Ethan opened the door.
“I need somewhere to stay.”
He looked at me.
Again, my choice.
I hated that it was a difficult one.
“Why?”
Paige held up her phone.
“Dad threatened me.”
Every part of me went still.
“What did he say?”
She showed us.
Roger:
If you repeat lies about me to investigators, I will make sure they know whose signature is on the Cincinnati lease.
Another:
You committed fraud too.
Another:
Think very carefully before choosing Sophie.
And finally:
She has Ethan. She’ll be fine. You’re the one who needs family.
I read that sentence twice.
She has Ethan.
She’ll be fine.
Even now.
Even while threatening Paige.
Dad assumed I required less care.
Because I had someone.
Because I was strong.
Paige whispered, “I’m sorry.”
I stepped aside.
“Come in.”
She stayed three nights.
We did not become sisters again.
Not immediately.
Trust is not a switch.
It is architecture.
And ours had been demolished one beam at a time.
But we talked.
Really talked.
For perhaps the first time in our adult lives.
Paige admitted she had spent years resenting me.
She believed Mom loved my competence.
I told her Mom exploited it.
Paige believed Dad rescued her.
I told her he had made her dependent.
We discovered that the same parents had controlled us using opposite stories.
To me:
You don’t need help.
To Paige:
You cannot survive without us.
Both stories produced the same outcome.
We stayed in assigned roles.
On the second night, Paige handed me her phone.
“Listen.”
A recording.
Dad’s voice.
Recorded three months earlier.
He sounded angry.
“You take the transfer from Sophie, move sixty-two to the Morgan account, clear your cards with the rest, and this ends.”
Paige said, “What if she refuses?”
Dad laughed.
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because your mother will make it about the wedding.”
My stomach twisted.
His voice continued.
“Sophie values order more than money.”
Paige asked, “What about Ethan?”
“He doesn’t interfere with her family.”
Dad had studied me.
That was what hurt.
He knew exactly which buttons to press because he had installed them.
On the recording, Paige said:
“This feels wrong.”
Dad answered:
“You want your credit fixed or not?”
Silence.
Then Paige:
“Yes.”
“So stop pretending you care how.”
The recording ended.
I looked at her.
“You still went along.”
“Yes.”
“Why record him?”
“Because I hated myself.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I wanted proof that it wasn’t all my idea.”
That was painfully honest.
She continued.
“I kept thinking if things went bad, I could prove he pressured me.”
“You were protecting yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Not me.”
“No.”
She started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
This time I believed the apology because it came without a defense.
“What are you going to do with the recording?”
“Give it to investigators.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
She laughed through tears.
“But I’m doing it.”
The next morning, she met Maya.
Then investigators.
Then an attorney of her own.
Paige disclosed the apartment.
The credit cards.
Cash deliveries.
The transfer plan.
Dad’s instructions.
Her own involvement.
All of it.
Her lawyer warned that cooperation did not erase what she had done.
She nodded.
For the first time in her life, nobody was rescuing her.
And strangely, she seemed steadier.
Three days later, Roger was formally interviewed.
He denied planning the wedding-day transfer.
Investigators played Paige’s recording.
His story changed.
He claimed it was hypothetical.
Then they showed the forged loan guarantee.
He claimed I had authorized it.
Then they produced metadata showing the document was created on his laptop from a scanned version of my signature taken from an old nursing school form.
His story changed again.
By evening, Mom called Paige.
Not me.
Paige answered on speaker.
“You betrayed your father.”
Paige’s face crumpled.
I reached to end the call.
She stopped me.
“No.”
Then she said something I never thought I would hear.
“No, Mom.”
Linda went silent.
Paige’s voice shook.
“He betrayed us.”
“You don’t understand what you’ve done.”
“Yes, I do.”
“He could go to prison.”
“I know.”
“How can you live with yourself?”
Paige closed her eyes.
“For the first time, I’m trying to.”
Then she hung up.
We sat silently.
A minute later, my phone rang.
Maya.
I answered.
“They found another account,” she said.
My stomach dropped.
“What account?”
“Not yours.”
“Whose?”
“Ethan’s.”
I looked across the room at my husband.
Maya continued.
“Roger ran a background report on him eleven months ago.”
Ethan frowned.
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
May you like
Then she added:
“But two weeks after that report, someone tried to open a line of credit using Ethan’s information.”
