Chapter 4 - The Ruin of Apex Motors
Three days after giving birth, I was discharged from the hospital. I didn't go back to the empty house. Instead, I moved into a stunning, high-security penthouse apartment overlooking the city, which Marianne had helped me secure using a completely separate, untouched asset account. The space was flooded with natural light, filled with fresh flowers, and entirely devoid of any influence from the Vance family.
As I sat on the plush sofa, nursing Victoria, Marianne arrived with a folder of updates. She looked like a cat that had not only caught the canary but had bought the whole pet store.
"How are our favorite tourists doing?" I asked, smiling down at my daughter.
"They are unraveling at spectacular speed," Marianne said, opening her laptop. "First, let's talk about Apex Exotic Motors. When the corporate accounts were frozen, Ethan couldn't pay the floorplan insurance or the monthly lease on the showroom. But more importantly, your father’s trust was listed as the primary financial guarantor for their entire inventory of luxury vehicles."
"And since that guarantee was proven to be based on a forged signature..." I prompted.
"Exactly," Marianne beamed. "The manufacturing partners—consisting of two major European luxury car brands—immediately pulled their franchise agreements due to a breach of the morality and legality clauses. They sent transport trucks to the showroom yesterday morning and repossessed every single unsold vehicle on the lot. The showroom is entirely empty. Apex Motors is dead."
I felt a profound sense of justice. Ethan had used my name, my credit, and my inheritance to build a kingdom of glass. Now, the glass had shattered, and he was standing barefoot in the shards.
"What about his partner, Marcus?"
"Marcus is currently singing like a canary to the District Attorney," Marianne said. "He had no idea Ethan was forging signatures to prop up the business. As soon as the freeze hit, Marcus hired his own defense attorney and handed over every text message, email, and internal ledger proving Ethan was the sole actor in the financial manipulation. He’s completely turned on him to save his own skin."
"And Diane?"
Marianne’s smile grew even wider. "Ah, the queen mother. The country club’s board of directors reviewed the documentation we sent. Due to the public nature of the police incident in Cancún and the pending felony charges against her son—whom she publicly championed—they have officially revoked her membership for conduct unbecoming of the club. She’s been banned from the property. Apparently, she tried to show up for brunch yesterday anyway, and they had her escorted out by the same valet service she used to order around."
I couldn't help but chuckle. For Diane, social ostracization was a fate worse than death. The woman who had told me that a wife who couldn't satisfy her husband shouldn't expect pity was now experiencing the cold, unpitying reality of the social circle she had spent her life weaponizing.
Later that afternoon, my phone rang from an unknown number. Recognizing the area code of a local public payphone near the courthouse, I answered it, putting it on speaker.
"Nora... please," Ethan’s voice was broken, stripped of every ounce of the smug arrogance he had possessed just days prior. He sounded exhausted, defeated, and utterly small. "The DA is talking about a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for the bank fraud. The dealership is gone. I have nothing. My mother and I are staying in a terrible studio apartment on the edge of town. Please, tell your lawyers to drop the charges. We can work this out. For the sake of our daughter."
"Our daughter?" I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You don't get to use her as a shield, Ethan. You walked past her nursery with a suitcase to go on a beach vacation because my pregnancy was 'emotionally draining' for you. You told me to call an ambulance if I went into labor alone."
"I was stupid, I was stressed!" he cried out, and I could hear the sound of traffic in the background. "My mother was getting in my head, she kept saying you were trying to control me—"
"You are a grown man, Ethan, who made a conscious choice to steal from his wife and abandon his child. Your mother didn't forge those signatures. You did." I took a deep breath, looking at Victoria's peaceful, sleeping face. "The charges stand. The divorce will proceed. You will never see a dime of my money, and you will never, ever have access to my daughter. You wanted me to find out what comes with wanting a family? Well, this is what comes with destroying one."
"Nora, please! I'm begging you!"
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"Don't look for pity, Ethan," I said, repeating the very words his mother had used against me. "A man who can't respect his family shouldn't expect it."
I hung up the phone and blocked the number. The trap was fully sprung.
