The next morning, I met with an attorney carrying every contractor invoice, bank statement, text message, and photograph from the renovation. Ethan’s messages mattered most. For months, he had repeatedly called the apartment “our permanent home” while encouraging me to spend my separate savings improving it. His family trust still owned the building, so I could not simply claim the apartment. But my attorney explained that we could pursue reimbursement based on the money I had invested and the circumstances under which those improvements were made. A formal demand went to the trustees before they could quietly rent the renovated unit to someone else and pretend my $38,700 contribution had never happened.
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