“Caleb,” I said, speaking his name with absolute, dripping venom. “You abandoned me, bleeding in a hospital bed. You abandoned Emma and Ethan because your mother convinced you that we were a burden to your grand, wealthy future. You threw us away like trash to protect your money.”
I bored my eyes into the lens, reaching through the screen to grab him by his cowardly throat.
“But the truth is, Caleb, your future is now entirely in my hands,” I declared, my voice echoing with absolute authority. “Because your mother hasn’t made a mortgage payment on your estate in four months. And as the head of Apex, I signed the immediate, non-negotiable foreclosure order on your company, your assets, and your home at eight o’clock this morning.”
The studio audience erupted. People were screaming, cheering, clapping with a frantic, vindicated energy. It was television history.
I wasn’t finished.
I reached into the folder one last time and pulled out a second document, stamped with the red seal of the family court.
“And this,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the cheering crowd, “is a unilateral divorce petition, along with a formal request to the state to permanently terminate your parental rights based on gross abandonment. You thought we would fade into poverty and silence. But you don’t deserve to see these children grow up. You don’t get to touch them. You get nothing.”
I placed the papers back into the folder and snapped it shut.
“Enjoy your space, Caleb.”
The director cut the feed to commercial break, the broadcast logo flashing over the screen as the studio audience gave me a second, even more deafening standing ovation.
David Vance leaned over, shaking his head in absolute awe. “Nurse Carter… that was the most incredible thing I have ever witnessed in thirty years of broadcasting.”
