On Our Anniversary, My Husband Hit Me, But When All Three Brothers Appeared at the Door, Lauren’s Smile Suddenly Disappeared

The candle flames were still swaying when my husband hit me and my favorite ring rolled across the floor.

I did not fall. I pressed one hand to my cheek and placed the other on my stomach. The seventeen-week-old baby was still only a small round secret, but at that moment I covered it with my whole body.

Ethan breathed heavily.

“Do not speak to Lauren like that anymore, Grace.”

Behind him stood Lauren Pierce. She was wearing a black dress, Ethan’s favorite perfume, and had such a calm face, as if in our five-year marriage she were not a guest but the real owner of the house.

“You came into our house, to our anniversary, grabbed my husband, and now I am supposed to keep quiet?” I asked.

“Your husband came to me himself,” Lauren told me.

Her voice cut me more deeply than the blow.

The dining room smelled of rosemary and roasted meat. On the table lay the white glasses bought five years earlier, and in the middle was a small cream-colored box. Inside I had placed the ultrasound picture of the baby. I wanted to say at the end of the evening that he was going to become a father.

Now I was looking at the box and realized that I could no longer spare that news for him.

“Grace, do not make scenes,” Ethan said. “Lauren works at my company.”

“Three hundred and twelve messages in six weeks is a business relationship?”

His face changed.

“Were you checking my phone?”

“No. I read the statement left in the family account.”

Lauren snickered.

“You will probably say now that this child is your husband’s too and therefore he has to forgive you everything.”

The room fell silent.

Something inside me collapsed, but my eyes did not fill with tears. That was exactly when Lauren’s smile disappeared. For the first time she saw that I was not crying.

Ethan took a step forward.

“Enough.”

“No, it is not enough yet. Tell me, when did you decide that you needed my place in the house only when I was paying your bills?”

His fingers tightened.

I knew why. Five years earlier he had an old car, debts, and one small office. I sat beside him while he spoke with investors. I sold the jewelry left by my grandmother so that he could pay the employees’ salaries. I never said anything, because I did not want his gratitude.

But now his eyes looked at me as if I were the obstacle.

“You will leave the house tomorrow morning,” he said.

“This is my house too.”

“It is not anymore.”

Just then I hid my phone in my hand. I did not call my brothers. I sent only three words: “I need all three of you.”

The answer came in nine seconds.

“We are at the door.”

Ethan did not notice. Lauren went to the table and looked toward the cream-colored box.

“What is this?” she asked.

I did not have time to answer. Outside, the heavy sound of a car door was heard. Then the doorbell rang three times.

Ethan furrowed his brow.

“Who did you invite?”

Footsteps approached in the hallway. The door handle slowly went down, while my tallest brother, Daniel, was already reaching for the folder tucked under his arm…

Daniel opened the door all the way and entered the room. Behind him stood Michael, with his always-calm eyes, while the third, Alex, stopped at the door and looked directly at Ethan.

There was a dark green folder in Daniel’s hand. I recognized the color immediately. In childhood, in our father’s old archive, such folders were used when the matter did not concern ordinary family papers.

“Grace, are you all right?” Michael asked me.

“The baby is all right,” I answered, although my voice was trembling. “I do not know about me yet.”

Alex looked at Ethan.

“The mark of your hand is visible on her face.”

Ethan clenched his jaw.

“This is my family. You have no business here.”

“You said exactly that five years ago too,” Daniel said. “That is why we did not interfere.”

Lauren stepped back. Her heel struck the wooden floorboard and a sharp sound rang out.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“My brothers,” I told her.

“The brothers you never talked about?”

“You never asked.”

Ethan slammed his fist on the table.

“Everyone calm down! Grace put pressure on me the whole evening. I only told her that she had to leave the house.”

Alex took out his phone and touched the screen with his finger.

“No, you did not only say that.”

Your voice rang out in the room. Mine. Then the sound of the blow. The recording was so clear that for a moment I forgot to breathe.

“Do not speak to Lauren like that anymore, Grace.”

Then my calm, broken voice.

“This is my house too.”

And Ethan’s answer.

“It is not anymore.”

Lauren’s face went pale.

“This is illegal,” she said.

“You turned on the sound of the house camera yourself when you began intimidating Grace,” Alex replied. “The recording is already legally protected.”

Ethan looked toward me.

“You installed cameras?”

“Not me,” I said. “You installed them. Remember? You told me it was for safety.”

Daniel put the folder on the table.

“Now the main question. Grace, are you ready?”

My heart began beating as if I were running up the stairs.

“Ready to hear what?”

Michael pulled out a chair for me.

“For the truth we have been waiting five years to tell.”

Ethan smiled mockingly.

“What fairy tale is this? Grace is an ordinary housewife. I built the company.”

Daniel opened the folder, but did not look toward me yet.

“Ethan, Grace knows that her family has money. She simply does not know what she actually owns.”

Lauren asked quickly:

“What does ‘owns’ mean?”

Daniel placed one sheet of paper in front of her.

Lauren read it and lost her color.

I could not see the text, only watched her trembling fingers.

“This is impossible,” she whispered.

“What is impossible?” I asked.

Ethan knocked over a chair.

“Grace, do not listen to them. They are destroying our marriage.”

“Your hand destroyed our marriage,” I told him.

Michael took a small sealed envelope from the folder. My full name was written on it, but I did not recognize the handwriting.

“Mother left this for you,” he said.

Mother died three years ago. At her funeral, my brothers told me that they would explain everything later. I did not ask. I wanted only to be a wife.

Ethan changed suddenly at the sight of the envelope.

“They must not open that,” he said.

Everyone in the room turned toward him.

“Why?” I asked.

He could not find an answer.

Daniel extended the sealed envelope toward me. I reached out my hand, but just then Alex’s phone rang.

He listened to several words, then went to the window.

“Grace, before you open this, there is one more thing you need to know. This morning Ethan presented a document at the bank according to which you…”

“According to which I what?” I asked.

Alex stood at the window. The street lighting cast sharp shadows on his face.

“As if you were voluntarily transferring all the property to him,” he said. “The signature is forged.”

Ethan immediately shouted:

“That is a lie!”

“Then why did the bank’s lawyer call my brother?” Alex put the phone on the table. “And why were you trying to register the document today, on our family anniversary?”

Lauren looked at Ethan.

“You told me everything was already settled.”

“Be quiet, Lauren.”

“You told me that this house and the company would soon be yours!”

Ethan turned toward her.

“Are you standing against me in front of everyone now?”

“I am not standing against you. I simply do not want to go to prison.”

I had my hand pressed to my stomach. I had not yet felt the baby move, but at that moment I felt its existence more strongly than everything in the room.

Daniel put the envelope in front of me.

“Open it, Grace.”

I tore the seal with my finger. Inside were several pages, one old photograph, and an official extract.

In the photograph Mother was young. Beside her stood a man whom I knew only from several childhood pictures. My father, whom I had thought at the time was an ordinary construction contractor.

The paper said that my father had created an investment fund twenty-two years ago and left its controlling share to me. Two weeks before the marriage, this share was transferred into my name. None of it had been in Ethan’s company or in our house.

I read the next page and my hands froze.

Sixty-two percent of Walker Development belonged to me.

Not Ethan.

Me.

“This is a mistake,” Ethan said.

Daniel answered calmly:

“No. Ethan only took the position of manager. With your money, your share, and your trust, he built everything he calls his company today.”

I looked at Ethan.

“You knew?”

His face became gray.

“I knew that your family had certain assets, but you yourself told me that you would not get involved in anything.”

“You never asked.”

Michael put another sheet of paper on the table.

“It is Mother’s letter. She knew that Ethan was hiding financial information from you. That is why she instructed us to show you all the documents only when you asked for help yourself.”

My eyes caught the first sentence of the letter: “If you ever become afraid to tell him the truth, your silence will no longer protect you.”

Lauren covered her mouth with both hands.

“You… you are not his wife, but his owner.”

“I am no one’s owner,” I told her. “I only turned out to be the owner of my own life.”

Ethan came toward me.

“Grace, all this must remain between us. I made a mistake.”

“You hit me.”

“I was angry.”

“You brought another woman into our house.”

“It will be over with Lauren.”

“You used a forged signature.”

He had no answer anymore.

Just then Daniel’s phone rang again. He listened, furrowed his brows, and turned toward me.

“The bank sent a new message. The document submitted by Ethan was not only a forged signature. It indicates a second account, to which millions of dollars from your fund were transferred during the last six months.”

Ethan lost his color.

“This is impossible.”

“And there is one more thing,” Alex added. “The money has already been transferred to another country.”

This time I did not feel the blow anymore. I heard only silence.

Then my phone lit up. A message came from an unknown number: “If you go to the police tomorrow morning, I will tell the whole city the truth about your child.”

I was looking at the screen, while Ethan still did not understand that the worst news for him was waiting not in this house, but in the clinic…