Chapter 4 - The Eviction Notice
The next forty-eight hours moved with the cold, merciless efficiency of a high-frequency trading algorithm.
Andrew Sterling, my attorney, didn't waste time negotiating. By Friday morning, formal eviction papers had been served to Margaret, demanding she vacate her subsidized townhouse in Highland Park—which, naturally, was also owned by one of my real estate holding LLCs—within seven days. Lucas was hit with a comprehensive divorce filing that included a forensic accounting audit of every joint and hidden account he had tried to siphon funds from over the previous three years.
Astrolink’s board of directors, upon receiving my briefing regarding Lucas’s corporate espionage and misuse of subsidiary vendor accounts to fund his mistress's lifestyle, voted unanimously to terminate his consulting advisory role and blacklist him from any future fintech partnerships in Texas.
By Saturday afternoon, the penthouse was blessedly quiet.
Margaret had packed her Louis Vuitton luggage—purchased, of course, with my rewards points—and retreated to a modest two-star extended-stay motel somewhere off I-35 when she realized none of her society friends were willing to answer her frantic calls once word got out that she was entirely financially cut off.
Lucas was holed up in a cheap downtown loft belonging to one of his fraternity brothers who still thought Lucas was a high-rolling venture capitalist.
I sat alone on the balcony of my penthouse, wrapped in a cashmere throw, watching the Saturday evening traffic stream down Turtle Creek Boulevard. The city looked vast, brilliant, and completely untamed. For five years, I had shrunk myself to fit inside the narrow, suffocating box of a traditional marriage where a mediocre man’s ego had to be protected at the expense of my own truth.
My phone buzzed on the glass side table.
It was an unknown number, but caller ID displayed a local Dallas prefix. I pressed accept.
“Charlie?”
Lucas’s voice sounded small, ragged, and hollow, stripped of all the arrogant bluster he used to wear like armor around his mother.
“Lucas,” I said evenly. “If this is about the BMW lease, it’s already been repossessed. Don’t bother asking.”
“Please,” he choked out, a pathetic shudder rippling through his words. “Charlie, please... can we just talk? Just five minutes. I messed up. I was stupid, I was stressed about the funds, I let my mother get into my head... but we built something together. You can’t just throw five years away like I’m nothing.”
I looked out over the glittering skyline, watching the red and white taillights flow like rivers beneath the dark Texas night.
“Lucas, you didn’t build anything,” I said softly, the words carrying the finality of a slammed door. “You just lived in a house I built, wearing clothes I paid for, riding the coattails of a woman you secretly resented because she was smarter and stronger than you’ll ever be.”
“Charlie—!”
“Don’t call this number again,” I interrupted, my voice as cold as winter steel. “My lawyers will handle the rest. Goodbye, Lucas.”
May you like
I tapped the red button, silencing him forever.
Then, deliberately, I went into my settings, blocked his number, blocked Margaret’s number, and cleared my call log.
