I read the text, and the blood froze in my veins. It was a petition for involuntary commitment. Richard had been documenting “evidence” of my mental instability. He had notes about my mood swings from the hormones I took during IVF, my depression grieving my miscarriages, and my “paranoia.”
Plan A: divorce her after the trust fund clears.
Plan B: if she fights the prenup, prove she is mentally incompetent to manage her estate. Have Richard appointed as conservator.
He wasn’t just going to leave me if I fought back. He was planning to have me locked up and take control of my fortune that way. He wanted to pull a Britney Spears on me.
I sat back in the leather chair, staring at the glowing screen. The cruelty was bottomless. This man whom I had nursed through the flu, whose debts I had paid, whose ego I had stroked for a decade—he looked at me and saw nothing but an ATM machine he needed to hack.
The hard drive beeped. Transfer complete.
I pulled the drive out and slipped it into my bra. I shut down the computer. I wiped my fingerprints off the keyboard and the desk surface. I stood up and looked around the room. I wanted to smash everything. I wanted to take a golf club to his monitors, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I needed the big money to drop. I needed them to think they had won.
I walked out of the office and locked the door. My hands were shaking, but not from fear anymore. They were shaking with the adrenaline of the hunt.
I went downstairs and poured myself a glass of wine. I sat in the dark living room and dialed my father.
“Dad,” I said when he picked up.
“Laura, is everything okay? It’s late.”
“No, Dad. Everything is wrong. But I need you to listen to me, and I need you to not get angry. I need you to help me destroy him.”
There was a pause on the line. Then Arthur Reynolds’ voice came through, low and dangerous as a growling tiger.
“Tell me everything.”
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