I looked at Lauren, who was trembling with rage, and then at Detective Morrison, who was quietly recording the call.
I should have hung up. The old me would have cried and apologized for causing a rift. But the old me died the moment Travis’s fist connected with my body.
“What I’ve done?” I answered, my voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of any warmth. “Your brother nearly killed his unborn children because he was throwing my money away on blackjack tables. Your mother stole forty grand from me to fund her pathetic, hollow vanity. Your father enabled a sociopath.”
“Travis made one mistake!” Vanessa shrieked. “One mistake, and you’re trying to ruin his life because you’re vindictive!”
“He forged my signature on federal documents, Vanessa,” I stated coldly. “He stole a quarter of a million dollars. He spied on my phone. He abandoned me in labor, and then he battered me in front of ten witnesses. That isn’t a mistake. That is a criminal enterprise. I hope your mother enjoys her new Nordstrom bag, because she’s going to have to sell it to pay for his commissary.”
I ended the call and looked at the detective. “I want to press charges. Every single charge you can possibly make stick. I want him buried.”
Morrison offered a grim, satisfied smile. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
The next eighteen months were a grueling, exhausting descent into the trenches of the justice system, balanced against the delicate, beautiful exhaustion of raising premature twins.
Grace and Hope had spent four weeks in the NICU, fighting for every ounce of weight. Every day, I sat beside their plastic incubators, slipping my fingers through the portholes to touch their impossibly tiny hands, whispering promises that I would burn the world down before I let anyone hurt them again.
When they finally came home, my life became a fortress. My parents had abandoned their Mediterranean cruise the moment Lauren contacted them. My father, a quiet, stoic retired engineer, had to be physically restrained by airport security to keep him from driving directly to the county jail to tear Travis apart with his bare hands. He funneled his rage into action, installing a state-of-the-art security system in my home and standing guard like a sentinel.
Lauren moved into my guest room, refusing to let me navigate the night feedings alone.
But my greatest weapon was Christine Duval.
Christine was a formidable, high-priced family law attorney that Lauren’s boss had recommended. She was a woman who treated divorce and restitution not as legal proceedings, but as total war. When I laid out the evidence Detective Morrison had gathered, Christine’s eyes gleamed with predatory delight.
“Because he forged your signature and committed federal fraud, you are not legally liable for a single cent of the debt,” Christine explained during our first meeting. “We are voiding the second mortgage. The credit card companies are reversing the charges and pursuing him for fraud. But we aren’t stopping there. We are going after his parents.”
Gerald, desperate to protect his golden boy, hired a flashy, expensive defense attorney and filed motion after aggressive motion, trying to paint me as an emotionally unstable, vindictive wife who had provoked the attack.
It failed spectacularly.
