Sign the papers, sweetheart, or I’ll make sure you leave this marriage with nothing

I slid the folder across the table before he could take another sip. ‘Open it, Marcus.’ He laughed, that condescending chuckle he used on waiters and assistants. ‘Sweetheart, whatever sad little divorce attorney you scraped together can’t touch what’s mine.’ He flipped the folder open anyway, just to humiliate me publicly. The smile fell off his face in stages. First the eyes. Then the jaw. Then the bourbon glass, which clinked hard against the table. Inside were bank statements. Property deeds. Shell company filings. Every offshore account he’d opened in the Caymans under his mother’s maiden name. Every wire transfer he’d routed through the ‘consulting firm’ that didn’t exist. Every dollar he’d skimmed from his investors for three years straight. ‘Where,’ he whispered, ‘did you get this.’ I took a slow sip of water. ‘Marcus, who do you think reconciled your books when you fired your CFO in 2021? Who organized your tax filings? Who you called your little homemaker?’ His lawyer was already standing up, but the two men in charcoal suits at the bar stood faster. I’d met them three weeks ago, in a quiet office downtown. The SEC is very patient when you bring them eight years of receipts. ‘You said I’d leave with nothing but the clothes on my back,’ I said softly, sliding one last document across the linen. A signed cooperation agreement. Full immunity. ‘Turns out, the clothes on my back are the only thing in this marriage that were ever actually mine.’ He lunged for the folder. The agents reached him first. As they walked him past our table, past the investors he’d been wining and dining, past the lawyer who suddenly couldn’t remember his name, Marcus looked back at me one last time. I lifted my water glass. ‘Sign the papers, sweetheart,’ I whispered. The waiter quietly placed the dessert menu in front of me. I ordered the crème brûlée. For the first time in eight years, I ate alone, and I tasted every bite.