Chapter 32 - A Whisper from the Ruins
The past has a funny way of trying to resurrect itself just when you've finally buried it.
I was at the office, finalizing the asset-freeze injunction against Elena's husband, when my receptionist buzzed my line.
"Emma, there is a courier here. He has a certified letter that requires your direct signature. The return address is a state correctional facility."
My blood ran cold for a fraction of a second, but my training immediately kicked in. I walked out to the lobby, signed for the thick, brown envelope, and took it back to my desk.
I recognized the handwriting immediately. It was jagged, arrogant, and rushed. It was from Mark, my ex-husband.
After the divorce, Mark had tried to maintain his lavish lifestyle by running a fraudulent investment syndicate. Without my father's connections and my silent labor propping him up, his incompetence had quickly caught up to him. He had been indicted for federal wire fraud three years ago.
I opened the envelope. It was a multi-page, rambling letter. It was filled with desperate apologies, claims that he had "found God," and pathetic pleas for me to put money into his commissary account because his former high-society friends had entirely abandoned him.
There was a time when a letter like this would have sent me into a spiral of anxiety and guilt. I would have wondered if I owed him something, simply because we shared a history.
May you like
Now, I felt absolutely nothing.
I didn't read past the second page. I walked over to the heavy-duty industrial shredder in the corner of my office, fed the letter into the machine, and listened to the satisfying sound of his desperate manipulation being reduced to microscopic confetti.
