I dumped his bags under the porch light, balanced his heavy suitcase on top, and taped a neon note where they couldn’t miss it. The note simply read: “Dorian’s things. He is your problem now.”
The drive back was cold, and the desert wind whipped through the open windows as I realized I was done being a safety net for a man who mistook my kindness for a weakness. As soon as I pulled into my driveway, I called a 24-hour locksmith to overhaul every entrance to the house.
He swapped the cylinders and wiped the digital codes, charging me a premium that I paid gladly because peace of mind was far cheaper than sharing a roof with a traitor. The frantic calls started flooding my phone just before the clock struck midnight.
“Okay, what exactly did you do?” he demanded in a voicemail. “This is not funny, answer me right now. Where is my stuff?”
At 1:14 AM, the heavy thuds of him pounding on the front door echoed through the hallway. I watched him through the doorbell camera as he stood there in his navy button-down, looking disheveled and acting as though he was the victim in this scenario.
I sent him one final text: “You said you were sleeping with Brianna, so I just helped you finish the move.” After that, the banging stopped and the street fell into a heavy, uneasy silence.
I assumed he had crawled back to her place to lick his wounds, but at 3:00 AM, my phone buzzed with an unrecognized number. I answered with a racing heart, expecting his voice, but a woman’s shaky, tearful tone met my ear instead.
“Is this Skylar? This is Brianna. I think your boyfriend is passed out in my front yard.”
I sat up straight in bed, the smell of fresh wood from the new door frames still lingering in the air. “Is he injured?” I asked, the instinct to care for him dying a slow death.
“He is wasted or something, and he was screaming at my door about how I ruined his life before the neighbors called the cops. But Skylar, I found something in one of the bags you dropped off that you need to see before the police get here.”
A cold pit formed in my stomach as she continued. “What did you find, Brianna?”
“Bank records, a jewelry case, copies of your social security card, and wire transfer slips for twenty-eight thousand dollars. There is also an envelope with your name on it, but Skylar, he told me you two broke up months ago and that he only stayed there for the lease.”
I closed my eyes and realized the infidelity was just the tip of the iceberg. “Don’t move a muscle,” I told her while grabbing my keys. “Tell the police he stole your identity and documents, I am coming there now.”
When I arrived in Scottsdale, the flashing lights of a patrol car illuminated the street where Dorian sat on the curb with a paramedic checking his vitals. He didn’t look like the charismatic man I loved; he looked like a common thief caught in a net of his own making.
Brianna walked toward me holding the black suitcase like it was filled with poison. She wasn’t the polished homewrecker I had imagined, but a pale, terrified woman who had been played just as hard as I was.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered as she handed me the bag. “I know saying that doesn’t fix any of this.”
“Did you actually sleep with him?” I asked, needing the blunt truth. She looked at her feet and nodded slowly.
“For four months. He told me you were unstable and obsessive, and that you were only together because of some legal contract you forced on him.”
I let out a dry, hollow laugh. “Dorian always had a different script depending on who was listening.”
She unzipped the suitcase and pulled out a velvet box that made my heart stop. Inside was my grandmother’s heirloom ring, the only thing my mother saved from our family’s bankruptcy years ago.
“He told me he bought this for me,” Brianna said with a look of pure disgust.
I felt a surge of adrenaline as I dug through the rest of the bag to find my passport, tax returns, and receipts for a company called “Summit Peak Holdings.” Dorian tried to stand up and stumble toward us.
“Look, Skylar, I can explain everything if you just listen,” he slurred.
“You should save that energy for your lawyer,” Brianna snapped before I could even open my mouth.
The police officer took interest when I showed him the forged documents and the jewelry that had been removed from my home without permission. Dorian tried to pivot, claiming we were partners and that the money was for our “joint future,” but the charm was gone.
We ended up back at my house so the police could take a full statement, and I didn’t object when Brianna asked to come along. We weren’t friends, but we were two witnesses to a very long con.
At 3:47 AM, I sat on my kitchen floor and called my bank’s emergency line. The agent confirmed that someone had tried to move a massive sum from my business savings to Summit Peak just an hour prior, but the security flag had frozen the account.
