The Billionaire Groom Replaced Me With His Tomboy After I Was Paralyzed Chapter 08
Garrett found out about the apartment exactly three days after the wedding disaster.
His mother, dragging her ailing body down to the County Recorder’s Office, yanked the property
records only to discover that the title had been heavily leveraged for an equity cash-out mortgage
three weeks prior.
The legal status stared back at her in cold print: MORTGAGED.
The old lady threw a massive scene right there in the registry hall, wailing at the top of her lungs.
“She conned us! She mortgaged the goddamn place! A three-point-eight million dollar apartment! Where is my grandson supposed to live now?!”
The clerk reminded her with absolute indifference, “This was a perfectly legal transaction executed
by the sole deed-holder. The property was bought entirely in full prior to the marriage, giving her
absolute right of disposal.”
Refusing to back down, the old bat spent the next half hour screaming at the ceiling. The moment
she finished her tirade, she dialed Garrett.
When the call came through, Garrett was at the hospital sitting by Roxy’s bedside. Roxy’s jaw was clamped shut with a heavy titanium plate, her lips swollen to the size of two large eggs, her speech leaking air with a heavy lisp.
Hearing his mother’s frantic words, Garrett squeezed his phone so hard the glass nearly shattered.
“Mortgaged?! When the hell did she mortgage it?!”
“Three weeks ago! Before the ceremony! She was playing along, telling you she’d add your name to the deed while backstabbing us to strip the equity!”
Garrett slammed the phone down, his eyes entirely bloodshot as he began pacing the sterile
hospital corridor like a caged animal.
Roxy propped her frail torso up against the pillows, her voice thick and slurred. “How… how much
did she hide…?”
“She pulled two-point-six million cash out of the equity, plus whatever she had left in her personal
checking. At least three million. Every single cent is gone.”
Roxy’s eyes darted around erratically. She tried to scowl, but the sudden movement yanked at her
surgical incisions, making her sharp-gasp through her teeth in pure agony.
“Then… what about the payday loans you pulled…?”
Garrett went dead silent.
The eighty-three thousand dollar payday loan, forty grand maxed out on credit cards, twenty-eight thousand remaining for the wedding planners, and thirty-six thousand in venue fees for the hote!
luxury ballroom. All told, he was buried under nearly two hundred thousand dollars of
high-interest debt. 1
Every single dime of that was supposed to be cleared using Sienna’s property and savings.
But now, the apartment was heavily leveraged, the cash had been cleared out, and the woman had vanished from the face of the earth. All he had left in his pocket was twelve hundred bucks in cash
and a wallet full of completely maxed-out plastic.
Roxy stared at the sheer panic on Garrett’s face for a long, heavy minute.
“Garrett, babe… my surgical copay still needs another thirty thousand dollars. Can you…?”
“Where the fuck am I supposed to conjure up thirty grand?!” Garrett roared, throwing a violent
punch straight into the drywall. His knuckles split instantly, leaving a smear of fresh blood across
the plaster.
Terrified by his sudden eruption, Roxy pulled the hospital sheets over her face and didn’t dare
make another sound.
Late that evening, Garrett’s mother arrived at the ward. Glancing coldly at the bandaged girl
shivering under the sheets, her expression twisted into pure, undisguised disgust.
“You little parasite, this entire nightmare is on you. If you hadn’t insisted on turning a beautiful luxury wedding into a trashy MMA stunt, would that girl have bolted? Would a three-point-eight million dollar property just fly out the window?!”
Roxy’s tears leaked down her swollen cheeks. Her mouth worked soundlessly, but the titanium
plate held her jaw so tight she couldn’t articulate a single word.
Garrett stood between them, his agitation boiling over.
The way he looked at Roxy now carried none of the lustful warmth from the days they spent fooling around in his sedan. He looked at her like a bad investment, a toxic asset that had completely wiped
him out.
An eighty-three thousand dollar loan, a sixty-two thousand dollar Cartier bracelet-he had sunk everything into a woman who was now disfigured and mute, without a single cent of return to show for it.
Suddenly, his phone buzzed violently in his palm. The debt collection agency was back.
“Hello, Mr. Miller. Your first loan payment is officially three days overdue, with a delinquent
balance of twelve thousand dollars. Please resolve this immediately, or we will flag your personal
credit score and initiate legal asset liquidation…”
Garrett terminated the call. He cast one final, frigid glance at Roxy, then at his mother, and walked out of the room without uttering a single word.
From down the long, empty hallway, the dull, muffled thud of his fists hitting the concrete walls
echoed rhythmically through the night.