I thought we were free. For months, I woke up in our new home, savoring the quiet mornings, the privacy, the relief of finally escaping my mother-in-law, Inga. But just as I started to breathe easy, a knock at the door shattered my illusion. A lawsuit. A court summons. And the most terrifying part? She knew where we lived. We had cut ties, erased our digital footprints, and built a life without her suffocating presence. So how had she found us? And why was she claiming we owed her money?

Wesley sat at the dinner table, poking at his plate of meatloaf with a frown. He sighed loudly and pushed it away. “I’m sick of meatloaf,” he complained. “Can’t you make something else?” His mother raised an eyebrow. “We had roast chicken yesterday, hamburgers the day before, and fish on Friday,” she said, her voice filled with disbelief. Wesley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah…whatever,” he muttered, pushing back his chair to stand up. “Wesley,” his mother called, her tone firm. “Please rinse your plate and put it in the dishwasher.”

The rain poured down relentlessly, drumming against the rooftops and soaking the streets as I made my way to the notary’s office. My coat did little to shield me from the cold, but I hardly noticed. My thoughts were too heavy, tangled with grief and uncertainty. My father was gone. The words felt surreal, as if saying them aloud would somehow make them more real. He had always been my rock, my guiding force. But over the years, that rock had crumbled beneath the weight of debts and secrets I