Chapter 3 - The Financial Guillotine
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I dialed a number I had memorized but rarely used in Garrett's presence. He watched me with a mixture of amusement and irritation.
“Daniel,” I said clearly when my chief financial officer answered on the first ring, “suspend every unused credit line connected to Lawson Technologies immediately.”
Garrett’s smug smile disappeared instantly.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, reaching for my phone. I stepped back.
“Freeze all discretionary funding,” I continued, my voice carrying over the silent ballroom, “and call an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning. Protect the employee payroll, but release absolutely no additional capital to Garrett or his executive team under any circumstances.”
Garrett’s phone rang almost immediately in his pocket.
Then Margaret’s phone chimed loudly from across the room.
Several prominent investors sitting at the front tables checked their screens, their faces dropping in shock as alert messages flooded their inboxes.
A board member seated near the front table whispered loudly to his colleague:
“The emergency credit facility was backed by Vance Global? I thought Garrett secured that independently!”
Garrett stared at me, the blood draining completely from his face.
“What did you just do?” he asked, his voice trembling for the first time in our marriage.
“I stopped my money from protecting you,” I replied coldly.
He lunged forward and aggressively grabbed my arm.
“You can’t just destroy my company over one little mistake, Evelyn!”
I pulled my arm away violently.
“This was not one mistake, Garrett,” I said, my voice rising.
It was three years of quiet, insidious insults. It was three years of him secretly taking money from our joint account while loudly telling his friends he paid every single bill. It was three years of him patronizingly calling my highly lucrative consulting work a "cute hobby." It was three years of treating Ruth like an embarrassment to be hidden away.
And it was three years of teaching our infant son that cruel men deserved respect simply if they wore expensive suits.
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I looked him dead in the eye and removed my diamond wedding ring, letting it drop onto the marble floor.
“I’m filing for divorce.”
