I didn't sleep that night.
Paced the kitchen until 4 AM.
Then I called Stephanie.
"Let him transfer the shares. That just ties Kathryn to the fraud. But the cars. The real estate. File injunctions now."
"Already drafting. April, this could work in our favor."
Kathryn called me at noon.
Her voice was champagne-bubbly.
"Guess who's a major shareholder now? Thomas believes in me. Unlike some people."
"Enjoy it. Because he just handed you the rope for your own gallows."
Thomas showed up at the house that afternoon.
Demanded his keys back.
Said he was moving into the apartment.
I dialed the hotel parent company's ethics hotline.
Speakerphone.
The audio of him charging rent to corporate accounts played through the kitchen.
He froze.
"Hello? This is the Integrity Line. How can I help you?"
I hung up.
Handed him his keys.
"The audit team will contact you shortly."
Two days later, they did.
Special auditors from the hotel group marched into Thomas's office at 9 AM.
Board members watched.
Department heads watched.
Thomas stood behind his desk and read a prepared statement.
"I... I acknowledge misappropriation of company funds. One hundred seventy thousand dollars. I will repay in full. Effective immediately, I am suspended pending final review."
He signed the repayment agreement.
His hand shook so badly the signature looked like a seismograph.
Then came the custody mediation.
Thomas and Kathryn arrived together.
Both in designer clothes.
Both radiating confidence.
"This is simple," Thomas told the mediator. "April is unstable. She's been on antidepressants for years. She's coaching Lily to reject me. It's psychological abuse."
Kathryn nodded sympathetically.
"I've seen it. The way she treats that child."
I stood up.
Opened my laptop.
The mediator leaned in.
Video.
Nursery.
Kathryn's voice.
"Shut up! Just shut up!"
The crib shaking.
Lily screaming.
Kathryn's face twisted.
"Your mother's a fat cow and you're just like her!"
The mediator recoiled.
I closed the laptop.
"There's more. Fourteen more clips."
Kathryn was served a restraining order before she left the building.
No contact with Lily.
Minimum 500 meters.
Enforceable immediately.
She collapsed on the courthouse steps.
Sobbing.
Shrieking.
Thomas pretended to tie his shoe twenty feet away.
My phone buzzed.
Stephanie.
"We have a problem. My paralegal's been accessing files she shouldn't. Late nights. Encrypted folders. I think Thomas got to her."
"How bad?"
"No proof yet. But I'm setting traps. Don't share anything new with my office for now."
I hung up.
Felt cold.
Three months later, the banks moved in.
I'd filed for asset seizure based on fraudulent conveyance.
Kathryn drove Thomas's Porsche to the designer boutiques on Alberni Street.
When she came out, a bailiff was waiting.
Papers in hand.
"This vehicle is seized pending litigation."
Her girlfriends stood there.
Open-mouthed.
She screamed at them to call Thomas.
No one moved.
Stephanie called that night.
"We got the shell company audit. And April? I uploaded everything to a blockchain verification platform. Timestamps. Hash keys. That evidence is now immutable. No one can claim tampering."
I exhaled for what felt like the first time in months.
The school parent association started a legal fund.
Fifteen thousand dollars in three days.
Cards.
Emails.
"We stand with you."
"Protect Lily."
"You're so brave."
I used my faculty position to petition the school board.
They voted to provide legal support letters for my custody case.
Official letterhead.
Institutional backing.
The meeting at Stephanie's office was supposed to be about final settlement terms.
Thomas walked in late.
Unshaven.
His suit didn't fit anymore.
"April. Please. My career. Everything I worked for. We built something together. Remember?"
I placed the divorce petition on the table.
Freshly printed.
"When you planned to drug me into psychosis, we stopped building anything."
He smiled.
Wrong reaction.
Wrong everything.
He pulled a document from his briefcase.
Yellowed.
Signed.
"Your parents' loan. From before we married. Original guarantee. You and I are co-signers. That means the debt is marital. You owe half. Plus interest. About four hundred thousand."
I stared at the paper.
Felt Stephanie tense beside me.
"The loan was settled years ago." My voice was flat.
"Was it? Can you prove that?"
He walked out.
Paused at the door.
"April. Don't assume everyone on your team is actually on your team."
The door clicked shut.
Stephanie looked at me.
"The paralegal."
"I know."
Page 3 of 5