Chapter 4 - THE PAPER TRAIL
I walked out of the ballroom,
the heavy oak doors closing behind me with a satisfying thud.
My car was waiting at the curb,
a black sedan that didn't scream for attention.
As the driver pulled away from the estate,
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
People wondered how I had the money.
Adrian had assumed my silence meant I was empty.
He thought that while he was out 'networking,'
I was at home doing nothing.
He didn't realize I was the one who had built the algorithms,
that predicted the market crash three years ago.
He didn't realize I had been buying distressed medical debt,
while he was buying designer watches.
When we divorced,
I let him take the house in the suburbs.
I let him take the savings account he thought was the bulk of my worth.
I let him think he had outsmarted me.
Because if he knew I was wealthy,
he would have fought for every penny.
By staying 'poor,'
I bought my freedom at a discount.
And I used that freedom to buy his new wife's dreams.
I had watched Celeste for a long time.
I knew she was brilliant but reckless.
She wanted the fame more than the medicine.
She wanted the marble floors in the lobby more than the equipment in the OR.
When she needed capital,
I made sure my fund was the only one that looked attractive.
I gave her the money with one hand,
and I wrote the trap with the other.
My phone buzzed again.
It was Adrian.
Mara, pick up. This is insane. You're going to destroy her life.
I deleted the message.
I wasn't destroying her life.
I was simply reclaiming mine.
The twenty million wasn't just money to me.
It was the cost of every lie Adrian had told.
It was the price of every night I had spent wondering why I wasn't enough.
The city lights blurred past the window,
and for the first time in years,
May you like
I didn't feel like a victim of his story.
I was the author of the ending.
