Chapter 4

The harassment started small, then it escalated.

A week after I went to the police, an eviction notice was taped to our door. The rental company, which I now realized was a subsidiary of Fowler Properties, claimed we had violated our lease. It was a lie, but it didn't matter. We had thirty days to get out.

Then the online campaign began.

Anonymous accounts started posting on local community forums and social media. They painted Andrew as a violent thug with a history of fighting. They called him a sore loser who attacked Wesley after the game.

They posted my photo, my name, the address of the veterinary clinic where I worked. They called me an unstable, hysterical woman trying to extort money from a good family.

My boss called me into his office, his face grim. "Maria, people are calling, leaving bad reviews. They're saying you're a troublemaker. I can't have this affecting my business."

He didn't fire me, not outright. But he cut my hours until I was barely making enough to buy groceries.

The medical bills started arriving. Piles of them. The surgery, the hospital stay, the physical therapy Andrew would need for years. The numbers were staggering, a mountain of debt I could never hope to climb.

I would come home to our small, rented house, the one we were about to be kicked out of, and find Andrew staring at the wall. The cast on his leg was a huge, white monument to his shattered future.

He stopped talking. He stopped eating. The light in his eyes, the one that burned so bright on the football field, was gone.

One evening, I found him sitting in the dark, clutching a photo of our dad in his Army uniform.

He looked up at me, his face a mask of despair.

"I wish I had died in the crash, Maria," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I wish they had just killed me. It would be better than this. I'm worthless now."

He started to sob, deep, gut-wrenching sounds of a boy who had lost everything. I held him, my own tears streaming down my face, feeling the weight of our entire world crushing us. We were alone, broken, and completely at the mercy of a family that wanted to destroy us.

At that moment, I felt a despair so profound it was like drowning. I didn't know what to do. There was nowhere to turn. No one to help.