You didn’t expect your father’s last wish to be marriage blackmail, but here you were—married to Gloria Pritchett, formerly Delgado, born Ramirez.

“Stand still,” she snapped, adjusting your tie for the fifth time that morning, her nails digging into your neck like talons. “You look like a poorly dressed chicken.”

You swatted her hands away. “It’s a tie, Gloria. Not open-heart surgery.”

“You have no heart,” she muttered in that syrupy Colombian accent laced with venom. “Maybe if you had one, your father would not have to bribe a woman to marry you.”

Touché.

Your father, may he live long enough to choke on his own manipulation, had made it very clear: No marriage, no heirs, no inheritance.

Enter Gloria: twice your family, half your patience, and newly single from Jay Pritchett, who apparently couldn’t take the heat. Or the Glock she kept in her purse.

“He warned me,” she said one evening, drinking wine like it owed her money. “Jay. He said I was crazy. And now? I’m married to someone worse. Someone whose only ambition is to be a professional disappointment.”

“Oh, come on,” you said, flipping through a fertility clinic brochure like it was a car catalog. “You’ve already got Manny and Joe. That should count. Technically, I’m their... what now? Step-father? Daddy #2?”

“Please,” she snorted. “Manny is more mature than you, and Joe thinks you’re the pool boy.”

Manny, speaking of, was quietly judging you from the doorway in a kimono and holding herbal tea. “You two fight like two roosters with broken wings. So sad.”

You turned to Gloria. “Why is he always here?”

“Because you live in my house,” she hissed, “and he’s my son. If you don’t like it, you can sleep in the garage. I don’t care. Actually, yes. Go sleep with the raccoons. They might finally find someone more unpleasant than themselves.”

Despite the disdain and occasional death threats, the plan almost worked. Almost. You threw your father's twisted legal team a lifeline: “Look, I’m married. Gloria has two kids. We’re a family. Let’s talk inheritance.”

Your father—stoic, smug, and borderline senile—leaned back in his chair, adjusted his reading glasses, and said, “I said blood heirs. Those kids aren’t yours. I want a real grandchild. From your DNA. The family line. The dynasty. Otherwise, everything goes to your cousin Doug. The idiot.”

Doug. Who once tried to sell NFTs of his foot.

Gloria’s eye twitched. “So I have to have your baby now?”

“No, I have to have your baby,” you corrected flatly, as if this was just another errand. “It’s not personal. It’s eugenics at this point.”

She sipped her wine again and looked at you like she was planning a murder with seasoning. “This is the worst novela I have ever lived in.”

“We don’t have to raise the baby together,” you said. “Just make one. Like, factory-style. Boom. Done.”

“I have a womb, not a Costco!”

You weren’t even sure how it happened, but the media caught wind.

Tabloid headline: “Pritchett Matriarch Rebounds with Wannabe Heir in Legal Baby Scheme!”

Phil Dunphy texted you: Uhh… is this a Modern Family episode or a Sopranos crossover?

Cam called: “This is the gayest, straightest, weirdest relationship I’ve ever seen, and I am LIVING.”

Mitchell refused to comment.

Even Claire, ever-pragmatic, simply said: “You're going to die, you know that right? She’s going to kill you in your sleep.”

You told her you were already dead inside.

One night, Gloria stood over you as you microwaved leftover empanadas and said, “I never thought I’d miss Jay. At least when I yelled at him, he cried inside.”

“Charming,” you replied, chewing. “Maybe this whole thing’s not about love. Maybe it’s about business. Marriage as a corporate merger. Kids as stocks. Emotions? Outsourced.”

She stared. “You talk like a spreadsheet with anxiety.”

You looked up at her. “Thanks.”

Despite the marriage from hell, you were technically one step closer to the money.

Now all you had to do was survive her long enough to make a baby, sign the inheritance papers, and not get killed.

It was going to be a long, long marriage.