Chapter 1 - The Labor of Revenge
The first contraction hit just as my attorney, Richard Sterling, answered the phone. I gripped the edge of Julian’s mahogany desk, knuckles turning white, and breathed through the searing pain radiating from my lower back.
“Clara?” Richard’s deep, steady voice echoed through the speaker. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. The trust transfer isn't scheduled for another week.”
“Cancel it,” I gasped out, sinking into the leather executive chair. “Cancel everything, Richard. Freeze the joint accounts. Freeze his company credit lines. And I need you to file an emergency injunction on the house.”
There was a brief pause on the line. Richard had been my late father’s bulldog for twenty years. He knew Julian was a shark, and he had never liked him.
“He left, didn’t he?” Richard asked quietly.
“He went to the Bahamas with Sylvia. He left me here to deliver our child alone.” Another contraction rippled through me, sharper this time. “But before he left, I found the bottom drawer, Richard. I found the offshore debts. He’s been siphoning my family’s trust to cover his margin calls.”
I heard the sound of a heavy file slamming onto a desk on the other end of the line. “That arrogant fool,” Richard growled. “Clara, listen to me. I will have the accounts locked down within the hour. By the time he tries to buy a martini by the pool, his platinum cards will be useless plastic. But right now, you need to get to the hospital.”
“I’m calling an ambulance,” I breathed, standing up and grabbing the heavy leather portfolio of Julian’s financial crimes. “But Richard? I want divorce papers drawn up by tomorrow morning. I want sole custody. And I want him destroyed.”
May you like
“Consider it done,” Richard promised.
As I hung up, a rush of water soaked into the expensive Persian rug. My water had broken. I was entirely alone in a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion, but as I dialed 911, I realized something beautiful. I wasn't crying. The woman who had spent months crying over her husband’s coldness was dead. In her place was a mother, and a mother protects her own.
