Chapter 2 - The Mugshot of a Titan
The emergency room at St. Paul Memorial Hospital smelled of rubbing alcohol and fresh ozone. Dr. Aris Thorne, a sharp-eyed trauma surgeon who had treated my architect firm’s crew members in the past, carefully placed eight neat butterfly stitches across my left temple.
"You're lucky the porcelain didn't hit half an inch lower, Nora," Dr. Thorne said, snapping off his nitrile gloves. "You’d be looking at a fractured orbital bone. The police officers outside need your final statement before they process him."
"Process him?" I asked, sitting up on the examination table.
"He’s in the back of a squad car at the Ramsey County detention center right now," Officer Rodriguez stepped into the room, holding a digital tablet. "Charged with second-degree felony assault with a deadly weapon, domestic battery, and resisting arrest. His mother tried to stop us from putting him in the car—we almost took her in for obstruction."
I looked at my reflection in the small stainless-steel mirror on the wall. The blood had been cleaned away, but a dark, ugly purple bruise was blooming across my skin. I didn't look like a victim. I looked like a woman who had survived a battle and walked away with the enemy's map.
"Officer," I said, standing up and smoothing down my blood-stained coat. "I want a temporary restraining order issued immediately. And I want access to his personal laptop, which was seized during his arrest."
"The restraining order is already being processed by the night judge," Rodriguez replied. "As for the laptop, our financial crimes division is already reviewing it. It turns out your tax foreclosure document wasn't the only thing he was hiding."
When I left the hospital at 2:00 AM, my cell phone was lit up with forty-seven missed calls and thirty-two text messages.
Genesis: Nora, pick up! We can fix this! Don't ruin my son's life over a mistake! Liam: Nora, Mom is hyperventilating. Call us. We need to talk about the mortgage. Jackson: You bitch. You set me up. I’m going to ruin you for this.
I blocked every single one of their numbers with a single tap of my thumb.
My assistant, Maya, was waiting for me outside in my black Audi SUV. She immediately handed me a warm travel mug of green tea and a thick, leather-bound folder.
"Did Marcus get the emergency injunction signed?" I asked, taking a slow sip.
"Signed, sealed, and delivered at midnight," Maya said, pulling out into the rainy St. Paul streets. "Marcus froze all joint bank accounts, filed for an expedited divorce under grounds of extreme cruelty and fraud, and revoked Jackson’s corporate access to your architecture firm."
"He never had real corporate access," I noted dryly.
"Well, he thought he did," Maya chuckled wickedly. "He tried to wire fifty thousand dollars out of your payroll account at 11:30 PM from the police precinct's holding cell using his phone's web browser. The bank rejected it instantly and flagged it as grand larceny."
I leaned my head against the cool glass window, watching the rain streak across the streetlights.
Jackson had spent five years treating me like a quiet, meek trophy wife who worked too hard and complained too little. He thought my quietness was weakness. He thought my silence was submission. He had forgotten that before I met him, I spent six years overseeing hundred-million-dollar skyscraper construction sites in downtown Chicago, directing two hundred hardened ironworkers and managing multi-tiered corporate contracts.
I didn't panic under pressure. I engineered solutions.
May you like
"Where are we going, boss?" Maya asked, looking at me through the rearview mirror.
"To my apartment," I said, a dark smile playing at the corners of my lips. "I have a feeling Genesis and her darling family will be visiting tomorrow morning to beg for mercy. I want to make sure the locks are changed before they arrive."
