Chapter 4 - The War Room
While Nathan stood sweating on the sidewalk outside Lincoln Park, Emily was sitting on the thirty-fifth floor of a glass skyscraper in the Loop, inside the corner office of Vance, Sterling & Associates.
She wore a dark navy tailored suit, her hair pulled back into a sleek, professional knot. She was sipping hot chamomile tea while Arthur Vance—a seventy-year-old titan of Illinois family law with snowy hair and eyes like a hawk—reviewed the financial ledgers spread across his wide mahogany desk.
"Brilliant," Arthur murmured, turning a page. "Absolutely brilliant, Emily. Your grandmother would be proud of you. You kept every wire receipt, every tax bill, every proof of improvement from the day you closed on that condo."
"Is the temporary freeze secure?" Emily asked, her voice steady.
"It’s rock solid," Arthur chuckled, tapping a gold fountain pen against the papers. "Nathan thought he was clever transferring fifty thousand dollars from your joint savings account into his personal business account two weeks ago. He thought you wouldn't notice. I’ve already flagged that transfer for fraudulent conveyance under marital property laws. The judge is going to tear his head off tomorrow morning."
Before Emily could respond, the office phone on Arthur’s desk rang. He picked it up, listened for five seconds, and put it on speakerphone.
"Arthur," the voice of Nathan’s attorney, a mid-level strip-mall divorce lawyer named Donald Gable, boomed through the speaker. "We need to talk about this ridiculous emergency filing. My client, Nathan Whitmore, is currently standing on the street with three small children and his elderly mother! This is a grotesque abuse of the court system!"
Arthur Vance didn't even blink. He leaned over the speakerphone, his tone dripping with aristocratic disdain.
"Donald," Arthur said smoothly. "If your client had spent less time playing the grand patriarch and more time reading the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, he would know that attempting to unilaterally convert a joint marital residence into an unauthorized group home for his brother’s family constitutes constructive eviction and domestic harassment."
"He has a right to his property!" Gable shouted.
"He has a right to half the net equity after my client is fully reimbursed her two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar non-marital down payment," Arthur replied coldly. "Now, listen to me carefully, Donald. If your client so much as scratches the paint on Penthouse B, or if he attempts to bring his mother into that building tonight, I will file an emergency motion for criminal contempt before Judge Miller at eight o'clock tomorrow morning."
"Where is his family supposed to go tonight?!" Gable demanded.
Emily stepped forward, leaning close to the speakerphone.
"Tell him to take them to a hotel, Donald," Emily said, her voice clear, sharp, and totally devoid of mercy. "Tell him to use the credit cards he used to buy his twenty-year-old Scotch. And tell him that if he calls my parents in Wisconsin again, I will add an order of protection to the divorce petition."
She slammed the button on the speakerphone, cutting off Gable’s furious sputtering.
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Arthur Vance looked up at Emily, a rare, warm smile touching his eyes. "You're not going to give him an inch, are you?"
"Arthur," Emily said, standing up and looking out the high window toward the blue waters of Lake Michigan. "For five years, I gave him my heart, my body, my money, and my dignity. He thought I was weak because I was quiet. Now he’s going to learn the difference between being quiet and being helpless."
