Chapter 3 - The Illusion of Victory
The next two weeks were a masterclass in calculated destruction.
I remained in the VIP maternity suite, upgraded immediately by my grandfather. I spent every waking moment by Liam and Chloe’s side. They were growing stronger every day, their tiny lungs fighting, their heartbeats steadying. Surrounded by the absolute best neonatologists in the country, my babies were thriving.
Meanwhile, Dominic was living in an illusion of victory that was rapidly disintegrating into a nightmare.
He still believed he had won. He believed that the divorce papers I had signed under duress would protect his assets and allow him to walk away clean. He had rushed to his cheap lawyer to file the paperwork the very next morning, assuming the joint accounts he had drained would fund his new life with Natalie.
He was wrong.
I was sitting in my hospital bed, drinking hot tea while reviewing a tablet, when my grandfather walked in with a thick, leather-bound dossier.
"How are my great-grandchildren?" Arthur asked, a gentle smile gracing his stern features.
"Gaining weight," I smiled back, the heavy burden of the past few years completely lifted from my shoulders. "Chloe opened her eyes today. Liam is off the ventilator."
"Excellent," Arthur said, taking a seat beside the bed. He placed the dossier on the tray table. "Now, onto the business of your soon-to-be ex-husband. It seems Dominic is a much bigger fool than we initially calculated."
I opened the file. Inside were pages of bank statements, corporate filings, and real estate documents.
"When Dominic 'drained' your joint accounts," my grandfather explained, "he transferred approximately four hundred thousand dollars into a private offshore account he set up under Natalie’s name, to hide it from the divorce proceedings. What he didn't realize is that the joint account was heavily monitored by the Sterling Family Trust’s fraud department."
I looked up, my eyes widening. "He committed wire fraud?"
"Federal wire fraud," Arthur confirmed, his smile turning predatory. "Moving marital assets across state lines to a hidden account during an active separation is a felony. My lawyers have already frozen the offshore account. He cannot access a single penny."
"What about his business?" I asked.
"Bankrupt," Arthur said simply. "Vanguard Medical Supplies relied on our hospital network for seventy percent of its revenue. When I canceled his contracts, his investors panicked. They pulled their funding. He has defaulted on his warehouse leases, and his payroll checks bounced yesterday. His employees are currently suing him."
I leaned back against the pillows, letting the sheer magnitude of the karma wash over me. Dominic had looked me in the eye while I was bleeding, terrified, and grieving, and told me I was nothing. He had tried to leave me destitute to fund his affair.
"There's one more thing," my grandfather added, tapping a specific document in the file. "The luxury apartment he kicked you out of. The one he leased under his name to live in with his mistress?"
"Yes?"
"He didn't read the fine print on the property management company. The building is owned by Apex Holdings." My grandfather’s eyes gleamed. "Apex Holdings is a shell corporation. It belongs entirely to your trust fund, Audrey. You own the building."
A slow, deeply satisfying smile spread across my face. Dominic had thrown me out of my own property.
May you like
"Grandfather," I said softly, looking at the eviction notice drafted in the file. "Can we send this by courier today?"
"I'll have it hand-delivered by a team of armed bailiffs," he promised.
