Chapter 4
The next three days were a blur.
I kept the children home from school. I didn’t want them out of my sight. I slept on the floor of their bedroom, a sleeping bag between their two beds, so I’d be there if they had nightmares.
They had a lot of nightmares.
Lily would wake up screaming, “No! Please don’t! I’ll be good!” over and over until I held her and rocked her and told her she was safe now.
Ethan tried to be strong. He didn’t scream. He just lay awake, staring at the ceiling, his eyes wide open in the dark. I’d hear him quietly crying into his pillow when he thought I was asleep.
My lawyer, Sarah Jenkins, came to the house. She was sharp, tough, in her late forties, with gray streaks in her dark hair and a no-nonsense attitude. She’d been my lawyer for ten years, handling business contracts and real estate deals.
This was different.
“Michael,” she said, sitting across from me at the kitchen table. “Vanessa has made bail.”
I felt my blood run cold.
“What?”
“Her brother posted it. Two hundred fifty thousand dollars. She’s out.”
I stood up so fast my chair scraped the floor.
“She can’t come near my kids. You have to get a restraining order—”
“Already done,” Sarah said, holding up a hand. “Temporary restraining order, effective immediately. She has to stay at least five hundred yards away from you, the children, the house, and their school. If she comes within that distance, she goes back to jail, no bail.”
I sank back into my chair.
“Is that enough?”
Sarah’s face was serious.
“Honestly? No. She’s hired Marcus Vane.”
I knew that name. Marcus Vane was the most expensive, most ruthless defense attorney in the state. He’d gotten murderers acquitted. He’d gotten rapists off on technicalities. He didn’t care about justice. He cared about winning.
And he was very, very good at it.
“Vane is already filing motions,” Sarah continued. “He’s trying to get the charges reduced. He’s claiming the children are coached. That you manipulated them into making false allegations because you wanted out of the marriage and wanted to avoid paying alimony.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Of course it is. But Vane is good at making ridiculous things sound plausible to a jury. He’s going to dig into your life, Michael. Everything. Your wife’s death. Your work schedule. The fact that you travel so much. He’ll paint you as an absent father who’s using his own kids to destroy an innocent woman.”
I ran my hands through my hair.
“What do we do?”
“We fight back. Hard. I’ve already hired the best child psychologist in the state to evaluate the kids. Her testimony will be crucial. And we need to gather every bit of evidence we can find. School records. Doctor’s visits. Witnesses. Anything that shows a pattern of abuse.”
She leaned forward.
“But here’s the worst part. Vane has filed for custody.”
I stared at her.
“Custody? Of my children? She’s been arrested for abusing them!”
“Abuse that hasn’t been proven yet. In the eyes of the law, she’s innocent until proven guilty. And Vane is arguing that you’re the unstable one. That you’re the one causing the children emotional distress with these false accusations. He’s asking the court for temporary joint custody pending the criminal trial.”
“No.” The word came out as a growl. “Over my dead body.”
Sarah nodded.
“That’s exactly what we’ll tell the judge. But Michael… you need to be prepared for a long, ugly fight. Vanessa has money now—her brother is wealthy, apparently—and Vane doesn’t come cheap. She’s in this to win. And if she can’t have you, she’ll try to take the one thing that matters most to you.”
She looked toward the living room where the kids were watching a cartoon, their faces pale and quiet.
“She wants to hurt you, Michael. And hurting them is the easiest way to do it.”
That night, after the kids were asleep, I went down to my home office. I pulled out the file Sarah had given me—Vanessa’s background check.
I’d done a basic one before we married. Clean record. Good family. No red flags.
But Sarah’s people had dug deeper.
Vanessa had been married twice before. Both marriages had ended quickly. Both ex-husbands had children from previous relationships. And both had lost custody of their kids after Vanessa accused them of abuse.
Coincidence?
I picked up the phone and called the first ex-husband. His name was David Chen. He lived in Oregon now.
It was late, but he answered on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Chen? My name is Michael Carter. I was married to Vanessa Reed. I need to talk to you about her.”
May you like
There was a long silence.
Then David Chen said, “She did it to you too, didn’t she?”
