You were born broken and left him empty-handed, so don't bring your bastard charity cases to my son's wedding.
The parking garage still felt cold against my skin when I finally drove out, the envelope on the passenger seat like a ticking time bomb. My mind raced with the implications of Dr. Pendelton’s confession. Andrew had been fertile, but barely. Evelyn had crafted an entire narrative around my supposed defectiveness to maintain their carefully constructed image.
I pulled into my apartment complex, the familiar brick facade a comforting sight. Lily, Ethan, and Noah would be home soon. I needed to process this, to plan.
As I stepped out of my car, a dark, nondescript sedan, tinted windows reflecting the afternoon glare, pulled up beside me. A man in a crisp suit, his expression utterly blank, emerged from the driver’s side.
He held a stack of papers.
“Valerie Bennett?” he asked, his voice flat and devoid of inflection.
My stomach clenched. “Yes.”
He extended the papers toward me. “You’ve been served. Temporary restraining order.”
My fingers trembled as I took the thick packet. The top page was emblazoned with a county court seal. *Kensington v. Bennett*. My eyes scanned the legalese. Evelyn had moved fast.
The order banned me from coming within 500 feet of the Kensington estate, from contacting Andrew or Evelyn, and specifically, from “disseminating or utilizing any personal, medical, or financial information pertaining to the Kensington family.”
A chill ran down my spine. She wasn’t just trying to shut me up. She was terrified of what I now possessed.
“Allegations of harassment and financial extortion,” the process server droned, as if reading from a script. “Damages sought: $500,000.”
Five hundred thousand dollars. A number designed to bury me, to make me abandon any thought of fighting back.
Attached was another demand: I was to surrender all digital storage devices—laptops, external drives, phones—to Kensington’s legal counsel within 24 hours. They wanted to erase my ability to act, to silence any evidence before I could even present it.
The process server lingered for a moment, waiting for a reaction, then simply turned and got back into his car. The sedan idled for a second, then glided silently away.
I stood there, the heavy packet of papers rustling in the breeze, the distant sound of children laughing from the playground suddenly feeling distant and unreal. Evelyn wasn’t just playing games anymore. This was an outright assault, an attempt to cut off all my avenues before I could even begin to tell my side of the story. She knew I had something; she just didn’t know what, or how much.
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