Chapter 3 - Walking Out and Legal Advice
I stood. I did not look at either woman. I looked directly at Ethan. The man I had loved since I was twenty-two suddenly seemed like someone I had been sharing a house with rather than a life.
“A husband who sits quietly while his wife is humiliated in front of her children does not deserve to stay her husband,” I said. My voice was so calm it almost frightened me. “And a husband who steals money from his family to buy jewelry for his sister is a coward.”
Ethan’s head snapped up. The color drained from his face. He knew immediately that I had figured it out. I reached down and took my seven-year-old daughter, Ava, by the hand. With my other hand, I took my five-year-old son, Owen.
“Come on,” I told them quietly. Still wearing the silk dress I had bought specifically for our eleventh anniversary, I walked out of the house. I left behind the roast chicken. The candles. The flowers. The silence. And the illusion that my marriage was something worth saving at any cost.
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I buckled the kids into the car and pulled away. The drive to my parents’ house outside Boulder was a blur of headlights and highway signs. By Tuesday morning, I was sitting in the wood-paneled office of Daniel Mercer, my father’s longtime corporate attorney.
“I want full custody,” I said. “I want the house I paid for, and I want a forensic audit of every dollar that has moved through our accounts for the last five years.” I placed a stack of bank statements on his desk. Daniel adjusted his glasses. “Understood, Rachel.” Then he paused. “But prepare yourself. Divorce audits tend to uncover things people were never meant to find.”
