Chapter 5
My father answered the phone and put it on speaker.
Ryan’s voice came through, calm and reasonable.
Nothing like the man who had thrown a plate at me hours earlier.
“Harold. I think we should talk. Man to man.”
“About what?”
“About Emily. About Lily. About this… misunderstanding between us.”
“There’s no misunderstanding,” my father said. “You threw a plate at my daughter. You’ve been lying to her for six years. You’ve been stealing from her. What’s there to talk about?”
Ryan sighed.
“Look, I know things got heated tonight. I lost my temper. I’m not proud of it. But Emily and I have a daughter together. We have a life together. You can’t just come in and destroy everything we’ve built.”
“You built it on lies,” my father said. “On my daughter’s money. On her trust.”
“I’m willing to make this right,” Ryan said. “I’ll pay back every cent. I’ll go to therapy. I’ll do whatever it takes. But I need you to let Emily come home. I need to talk to my wife.”
I wanted to scream.
How dare he act like the victim?
How dare he pretend this was just a small fight that could be fixed with a promise and an apology?
“Emily is right here,” my father said. “If you have something to say, you can say it to her.”
There was a pause.
Then Ryan’s voice softened.
“Emily? Baby, are you there?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Emily, please. Let’s not do this. Not like this. Think about Lily. She needs both her parents. She needs her home.”
“Lily needs to be safe,” I said. “She needs to be around people who don’t throw plates and lie and manipulate.”
“I made a mistake,” Ryan said. “I know that. But I can change. I will change. For you. For her.”
“Ryan, you’ve had six years to change. You didn’t. You just got better at hiding it.”
“Because of your father,” Ryan said. His voice was starting to harden. “He’s been poisoning you against me from the beginning. He’s the one who’s been manipulating you. Can’t you see that? He wants to control you. He wants to take Lily away from me.”
“Dad didn’t have to do anything,” I said. “All he had to do was tell me the truth. And you made that impossible for six years.”
“Emily—”
“I’m going to file for divorce,” I said. My voice was steady. Stronger than I felt. “We’ll work out a custody arrangement. But I’m not coming back. Not ever.”
Ryan was silent for a long time.
When he spoke again, his voice was cold.
“You’re making a mistake. A big mistake. If you think I’m going to let you and your father take everything I’ve worked for, you’re wrong.”
“Take what?” I said. “The house that my money paid for? The company that my father invested in? The savings you stole from me?”
“I built that life,” Ryan said. “Me. And I’m not going to let you destroy it.”
“Goodbye, Ryan.”
I hung up.
My father was watching me.
“You okay?”
I nodded.
“I will be.”
He stood up and walked to the window.
“He’s not going to let this go easily.”
“I know.”
“He’ll try to take Lily. He’ll try to make you look like an unfit mother. He’ll try to drag this out for years, draining you emotionally and financially. That’s what men like him do.”
“Then we’ll be ready,” I said.
My father turned and looked at me.
There was pride in his eyes.
“That’s my girl.”
The next few days passed in a blur.
My father’s lawyers came to the house.
We went through every financial record.
Every bank statement.
Every investment.
The picture that emerged was worse than I’d imagined.
Ryan hadn’t just taken forty thousand dollars.
He’d taken nearly two hundred thousand over the course of our marriage.
Small amounts here and there.
Forged signatures.
Secret accounts.
He’d even taken out a second mortgage on the house—my house—without my knowledge.
The debt was in my name.
But the money was gone.
Gambled away.
Spent on things he’d never told me about.
And then there was the other woman.
My father’s private investigator had found her.
Her name was Sarah.
She was twenty-eight.
She worked at the company.
Ryan had been seeing her for two years.
He’d even rented an apartment for her.
With my money.
When I saw the photos, I didn’t cry.
I didn’t scream.
I just felt… empty.
Like the last piece of the woman I used to be had finally died.
Lily was adjusting to life at my father’s house.
She loved Max.
She loved the pool.
She loved her purple room.
But I could see the confusion in her eyes.
The questions she was too afraid to ask.
On the fourth day, she finally did.
“Mom? Are you and Dad going to get a divorce?”
We were sitting by the pool, watching Max chase a butterfly.
I took a deep breath.
“Yes, baby. I think we are.”
Lily was quiet for a long time.
“Is it my fault?”
I pulled her into my arms.
“No. No, baby. It’s not your fault at all. Your dad and I… we just don’t love each other anymore. And it’s better for everyone if we’re not together.”
“Will I still get to see Dad?”
I hesitated.
I wanted to say no.
I wanted to protect her from the man her father really was.
But I knew I couldn’t keep her from him forever.
And I knew that if I tried, Ryan would use it against me in court.
“Yes,” I said. “You’ll still get to see him. But it will be different. You’ll spend some time with him and some time with me. And we’ll make sure you’re always safe.”
Lily rested her head on my shoulder.
“I don’t want things to be different.”
“I know, baby. I know.”
I held her tight.
And I promised myself that no matter what happened, I would protect her.
Even if it meant fighting Ryan with everything I had.
That night, my father found me in the kitchen, drinking tea and staring out the window.
He sat down across from me.
“The lawyers filed the divorce papers today.”
I nodded.
“Ryan will get them tomorrow.”
“He’s not going to take it well.”
“I know.”
My father reached across the table and took my hand.
“There’s something else. Something the investigators found.”
I looked at him.
The expression on his face made my stomach drop.
“What is it?”
He hesitated.
“Ryan has been talking to someone. A lawyer. Not a divorce lawyer. A criminal defense lawyer.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because he’s scared,” my father said. “He knows what he did. The forged signatures. The embezzlement from the company. The second mortgage. All of it is illegal, Emily. He could go to prison.”
I stared at my father.
Prison.
The word hung in the air between us.
I’d never considered that.
I’d thought about divorce.
I’d thought about custody.
I’d thought about getting my money back.
But prison?
“Would you… would you press charges?”
My father’s face was serious.
“That’s not my decision to make. It’s yours. He stole from you, Emily. He manipulated you. He hurt you. And if we don’t stop him now, he’ll do it to someone else.”
I looked down at my hands.
They were shaking.
“If he goes to prison… what do I tell Lily?”
My father squeezed my hand.
“You tell her the truth. That her father made some very bad choices. And that those choices have consequences. But that you love her. And that you’ll always be there for her, no matter what.”
I thought about Ryan.
The man I’d married.
The father of my child.
The man who had thrown a plate at my face and then called me hours later, acting like nothing was wrong.
I thought about the six years I’d lost.
The money.
The trust.
The relationship with my father.
And I thought about Lily.
About what kind of example I wanted to set for her.
About what kind of world I wanted her to grow up in.
A world where men like Ryan got away with everything?
Or a world where actions had consequences?
May you like
I looked up at my father.
“Do it,” I said. “Press charges.”
