Chapter 4 - The Legal Counterattack and the Foreclosure Notice
For the next ten days, attorney Jerome Carter’s office became a war room.
While Scott and Kayla were busy playing house in our former neighborhood, picking out baby cribs and planning their lavish, rushed wedding for the following month, Jerome and I systematically dismantled Scott’s entire financial foundation brick by brick.
First, we filed an emergency injunction in superior court regarding the forged power of attorney and the fraudulent mortgage lien placed against our primary residence. Because Washington state law treats unauthorized property encumbrances during an active marital estate with severe criminal and civil penalties, the commercial lender froze Scott’s newly minted corporate accounts within forty-eight hours of our filing.
Second, Jerome formally notified the estate executor of Margaret Evelyn Collins’s will regarding Section 14, Paragraph C—the devastating trap hidden in the grandmother's final testament.
The clause was brilliantly, diabolically simple: “Any beneficiary attempting to dissolve a lawful marriage within twelve months of receiving probate distributions, or engaging in public moral turpitude resulting in legal separation, shall forfeit seventy-five percent of their principal disbursement back into the family trust, transferring executive trusteeship entirely to the legal spouse.”
Scott hadn't just cheated on me. He had initiated a bitter divorce within weeks of inheriting the estate, while publicly parading his pregnant mistress around town, completely unaware that his grandmother—who despised dishonorable behavior above all else—had built a landmine directly into the inheritance framework specifically to catch him in his own selfish traps.
He thought he was clever. He thought he was untouchable with seven point three million dollars in his bank account.
Instead, he was legally exposed, financially overextended, and facing federal mail and wire fraud charges for the forged mortgage documents.
The climax arrived on a crisp Friday morning just before Christmas.
I was sitting at my executive desk at Kessler North, reviewing international logistics reports, when my personal cell phone buzzed.
It wasn't Scott. It was an unknown local number, but the area code was familiar.
I swiped to answer.
“Avery?”
It was Scott’s voice, but it sounded completely hollow, stripped of all its arrogant swagger. The confident, champagne-popping billionaire wannabe had vanished, replaced by a desperate, panicked man at the end of his rope.
“Scott,” I said calmly, leaning back in my leather ergonomic chair. “How can I help you? I’m rather busy with corporate acquisitions.”
“Avery, please,” he choked out, his voice cracking violently. “You have to call your lawyer. You have to call Jerome Carter right now. The bank... the bank is freezing all my accounts. They’re threatening to foreclose on the house, and the estate executors are saying my inheritance has been clawed back into the family trust!”
I didn't say a word. I just let the silence stretch over the phone line, enjoying the exquisite weight of karma.
“They’re saying I violated some obscure clause in Grandma’s will,” he ranted, panic rising into a frantic screech. “And... and the police showed up at my office this morning asking questions about a forged signature on a loan document! Avery, you know nothing about that, right? You signed something, didn't you? Tell me you didn't do this!”
“Scott,” I interrupted, my voice dropping into a register of absolute, freezing calm that commanded total silence. “You called me in the middle of a boardroom presentation while I was doing my job. You told me I had two hours to get out of the home I helped build. You laughed while your pregnant mistress stood in the background of our marriage. You thought you could erase eight years of my life with a text message and a sticky note.”
“Avery, please! We can fix this! We can talk about this like adults!” he sobbed, his voice breaking entirely. “Kayla is stressed, the baby is coming, we need that money—”
May you like
“You should have read your grandmother’s will more carefully,” I whispered coldly. “And you definitely shouldn't have forged my signature.”
Then, with absolute, unshakeable satisfaction, I tapped the red button and hung up on him forever.
