Chapter 5 - The Glass Fortress
I didn't go to my father’s house. I didn't go to the police. I went to a high-security storage facility on the outskirts of the city.
The security guard looked at my ruined wedding dress with confusion, but he didn't ask questions. He knew the name Carter. He knew that when someone with that name showed up at 3:00 AM, you opened the gate and didn't look at their face.
I walked into the small office inside the facility and sat down at a computer. My hands were shaking, but as soon as I connected my phone to the USB port, the shaking stopped.
I uploaded the audio to three separate cloud servers. Then, I dialed the one number I had promised myself I would never need.
"Beatrice Hale," a crisp, terrifyingly efficient voice answered. She was my father’s head counsel, a woman who had once ruined a senator's career over a misfiled tax return.
"Beatrice," I said, my voice eerily calm. "It’s Emma Carter."
There was a pause. "Emma? Where are you? Your father has been calling your cell all night."
"I have a recording," I said, bypassing the pleasantries. "I have my husband, his mother, and his mistress discussing a systematic fraud plan to strip me of my assets and my sanity. And I have the metadata for every document I’ve signed in the last month."
"Stay where you are," Beatrice said. Her voice didn't waver. "I am sending a secure car. Do not return to the house. Do not contact Ethan. Do not speak to your mother-in-law. You are officially under our protection."
"I want him dismantled," I said.
"Emma," Beatrice replied, "when the Carters dismantle someone, we don't just win. We ensure they never have the opportunity to hurt anyone ever again."
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I hung up. I sat in the silent, cold office, watching the data bars on the screen. Ethan wanted a simple divorce? He wanted to take my house? He wanted to play the grieving husband while he played house with Monica?
He had no idea what he had done. He had married the wrong woman, and he had insulted the wrong family.
