Chapter 1 - Cold Plates and Frozen Assets
I stared down at the tiny, lint-covered piece of lobster resting in Ethan’s warm, sticky palm. My chest tightened so hard it physically hurt to draw a breath.
This was my five-year-old son. While his father, his grandmother, and his aunt sat in the next room gorging themselves on a $300 feast that I had bought, my little boy had been fed white rice and a single scrambled egg. And yet, his first instinct wasn't to complain; it was to protect me. He had hidden a scrap of food in his pocket because he knew, with the terrifying intuition only a child of a broken home possesses, that his mother was being starved out of her own household.
"Thank you, sweetie," I whispered, my voice thick with unshed tears. I took the tiny piece of meat from his hand and gently placed it into my apron pocket, right next to the bank documents that would soon destroy his father's life. "This is the best thing I've ever eaten. But you need to go back to bed now, okay? Mommy has to talk to Daddy and Grandma."
"Are you going to be sad?" Ethan asked, his large brown eyes searching my face.
"Never again," I promised him, kissing his forehead. "Mommy is going to fix everything."
I watched him slip back down the hallway, his little dinosaur slippers making soft thud-thud sounds on the hardwood. The moment his bedroom door clicked shut, the warmth drained from my face. My features hardened into a mask of pure, unadulterated ice.
I walked back into the living room.
The scene was even more grotesque than before. Ryan was now slumped back on the couch, his hand resting on his beer-bloated stomach. Susan was dabbing melted butter from her chin with one of my grandmother’s heirloom linen napkins—linen she knew I saved only for holidays. Jessica, his sister, was loudly sucking the meat out of a lobster leg, her eyes glued to a reality dating show on the television.
"Oh, look who decided to join the living," Susan sneered, not even looking up. "Did you find your plate? Don't say we never leave you anything."
"I found it," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. "An empty shell and a stale tortilla. Thank you, Susan. It really shows how much you value my hard work."
Ryan groaned, tossing an empty beer can onto the coffee table, where it clattered against a pile of discarded lobster legs. "Jesus, Emma, here we go. Every single day you come home from that salon looking for a fight. It’s just lobster. It’s not a national tragedy. Jessica is pregnant, for God's sake. She needs the protein."
"And what about Ethan?" I asked, stepping closer to the couch. "Did he not need protein? Or is he also 'not really family anymore,' like Susan told him today?"
The room went suddenly quiet. Susan’s hand froze mid-air. She turned her head slowly, her eyes narrowing into venomous slits. "The boy is five years old, Emma. Seafood makes toddlers sick. I did you a favor by making him a clean, healthy meal. And as for what I told him—I was simply explaining reality. A wife’s place is in the home, supporting her husband. Not staying out until ten at night, leaving her family to fend for themselves while she gossips with suburban housewives over hair dye."
"I work twelve hours a day to pay sixty percent of our mortgage, Susan," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "Ryan’s business has been failing for two years. If I didn't work, we wouldn't even have a kitchen for you to cook those lobsters in."
Ryan stood up, his face flushing red with anger. "Don't you dare talk about my business in front of my family! I’m on the verge of a massive breakthrough. By next week, I’m going to have more cash than your little salon makes in a decade. You have no idea what I’m pulling off."
Oh, I know exactly what you’re pulling off, I thought, my fingers tightening around the Chase Bank papers in my purse. You’re trying to steal $200,000 from the equity of this house. The house my father helped me buy before he died.
"Is that so?" I asked, forcing a cold, tight smile. "A big breakthrough. I certainly hope so, Ryan. Because things are about to change around here. Drastically."
"Whatever," Ryan muttered, sinking back into the couch. "Just clean up this mess. I'm tired."
"Clean it yourself," I said.
Before any of them could utter a word of protest, I turned on my heel, walked up the stairs, and locked myself in the guest bedroom. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn't called in years.
May you like
"Sarah?" I whispered when the line connected. "It’s Emma. I need the best forensic accountant in Chicago. And I need a divorce attorney who eats predators for breakfast."
On the other end of the line, my college best friend—now a high-powered corporate lawyer—didn't hesitate. "Tell me everything."
