Chapter 9 - The Freeze
The legal injunction hit Bennett's accounts at exactly ten o'clock that morning,
freezing every asset associated with the Cross name.
By eleven,
the news had reached the financial press,
and the stock price of Cross Pharmaceuticals began to plunge like a stone in water.
I sat in my office,
watching the numbers tumble on my computer screen,
feeling a quiet sense of satisfaction.
This was the company Bennett had spent his entire life building,
using my research and my family's connections to secure his place in the elite.
Now,
it was being dismantled by the very laws he thought he was above.
My attorney,
Sarah,
called with an update,
her voice sounding sharp and energized.
"Vivienne,
the judge signed the temporary restraining order on his personal assets as well,"
she said,
"he cannot spend a single dollar without court approval."
"Has he tried to contact you?"
I asked.
"His lawyers have been calling every five minutes,"
she laughed,
"they are panicking,
they want to offer a settlement."
"What are they offering?"
"They want to give you the house and the medical patents,"
she said,
"in exchange for dropping the fraud charges and releasing the asset freeze."
"Tell them no,"
I said without hesitation,
"the patents already belong to me,
and the house is being foreclosed anyway."
"I knew you would say that,"
Sarah said,
"we have a deposition scheduled for Thursday,
and Bennett will have to answer our questions under oath."
"I will be there,"
I said,
"and I want to make sure the press is there to record his answers."
"He will try to paint you as the bitter wife,
Vivienne,"
she warned,
"he is already trying to leak stories to the local tabloids."
"Let him try,"
I said,
"the public prefers financial records to cheap rumors,
and we have the bank statements to prove where the money went."
As I hung up the phone,
I looked at the framed photograph on my desk,
taken on the day Bennett and I were married.
He looked so handsome,
so full of life and promise,
and I had truly believed we were going to change the world together.
But the man in the photograph was a ghost,
a creation of my own hope and his perfect acting.
I picked up the frame,
opened the back,
and pulled the picture out,
sliding it into the paper shredder near my desk.
The machine let out a low,
rhythmic hum as it destroyed the memory,
leaving only clean,
white shreds behind.
May you like
The past was gone,
and the future was finally mine to write.
