Aiki’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“I could do Uber after work,” I mused. “Maybe sell my gaming collection. Whatever it takes.”

She quit her job the next afternoon. She didn’t just quit; she sent a bridge-burning email calling her boss a sexist, her coworkers incompetent, and the company a toxic hellhole. She showed it to me proudly, like she’d done something brave.

“Are you sure that was wise?” I asked carefully.

“Who cares?” she chirped. “I have you.”

But here’s what she didn’t know. I’d already found Matt. My private investigator had tracked him down, and he was very interested to know about the baby he thought he’d paid five thousand dollars to avoid.