Chapter 2
843words
My phone vibrated. Ethan Wilson—my attorney and oldest friend.
"Is it done?" His voice carried its usual steadiness.
"Yes." My voice came out raw, barely above a whisper.
"I'm at the entrance to the community. Black Audi."
I spotted Ethan's sedan immediately. He stepped out, stowed my suitcase in the trunk, then held the passenger door open.
"Where to?" he asked simply.
"Anywhere. Just find me a hotel for tonight."
Ethan asked nothing more and pulled away from the curb.
The car's heater gradually thawed my frozen limbs.
"Thank you, Ethan," I murmured, sinking into the leather seat.
"We're friends," he paused. "And I'm your attorney. This is literally my job description."
I'd known Ethan for a decade.
He'd been two years ahead of me in college—and my only real friend.
After graduation, he joined a prestigious law firm while I married Alexander, and we drifted apart.
Ironically, I had Alexander to thank for our reconnection.
At a corporate cocktail party where Alexander had dragged me along as his accessory, we encountered Ethan working the room.
Alexander had apparently forgotten his previous warnings to avoid Ethan Wilson, whose gaze he once described as "predatory."
That evening, Alexander wrapped his arm possessively around my waist in front of Ethan, marking his territory.
The moment Alexander stepped away to schmooze with potential investors, I pressed a note into Ethan's palm: "Help me."
Ethan's expression flickered briefly before he pocketed the note with practiced discretion.
He called me the following morning.
I told him everything about my five-year prison sentence of a marriage.
After I finished, Ethan remained silent for a long moment.
Finally, he said just one thing: "Whatever you need, Vivian. I'm here."
And so today's events were set in motion.
"He'll see it," Ethan said suddenly, breaking the car's silence.
I knew exactly what he meant.
"What difference would it make?" I attempted a smile that felt like a grimace. "He wouldn't care. To him, I'm just a desperate, manipulative woman who'd do anything to keep him. He'd assume it was another performance."
Ethan's eyes met mine briefly in the rearview mirror, but he said nothing more.
As it happened, I had still underestimated Alexander's capacity for cruelty.
The next morning, Ethan arrived with the divorce papers bearing Alexander's signature.
"How did he react?" I asked.
"He didn't," Ethan replied flatly. "His attorney said Grant didn't even glance at the documents—just signed where indicated. As for the medical reports, they were probably tossed with the morning trash."
My heart constricted painfully, as though crushed in an invisible vise.
He couldn't even be bothered to look.
"The settlement terms?" I asked, forcing myself to focus on practicalities.
"He's being 'generous.'" Ethan handed me a document. "The west side apartment, your studio, plus fifty million in cash compensation."
I scanned the terms, tasting nothing but bitter irony.
This was quintessential Alexander—throwing money at problems until they disappeared.
He believed money could purchase my talent, my love, my very dignity.
Now he wanted to buy his way out of our history.
"I don't want any of it," I said flatly. "Not the properties, not the money. Just my paintings and my mother's brooch."
The brooch was my only inheritance—a sapphire butterfly my mother had worn until her final day. At our wedding, Alexander had pinned it to my dress himself, vowing to protect me as my mother would have.
What a cruel joke that promise had become.
Ethan nodded. "I'll make it happen."
Three days later, my belongings arrived.
Alexander's assistant delivered a cardboard box to the hotel lobby. Her voice over the phone remained clinically detached: "Miss Shen, your items are enclosed. Mr. Grant requests you refrain from further disrupting his and Miss Lawrence's lives."
I opened the box in my room.
Inside lay my sketches and a small velvet jewelry box.
I opened the case. The butterfly brooch nestled on black velvet, its sapphire wings catching the light.
But something was wrong—the clasp was broken.
I'd worn this brooch exactly once—on my wedding day—before storing it in our safe.
Only Alexander and I knew the safe's combination.
I closed my eyes, suddenly recalling my first encounter with Claire after her return.
That day, she'd worn an outfit identical to one of mine, a stunning sapphire pendant gleaming at her throat.
"Vivian, did you know?" she'd simpered. "Alex says this particular blue suits me perfectly. 'Cornflower blue'—the purest shade in existence. Just like me."
I'd dismissed it as petty one-upmanship.
Now I realized the truth—the sapphire in her pendant matched mine exactly, in both color and cut.
He'd coveted my mother's heirloom from the beginning.
He'd pried the genuine stone from my mother's brooch, gifted it to his mistress, then replaced it with a worthless replica before returning the damaged piece to me.
Such calculated cruelty.
I clutched the cold metal until my nails drew blood from my palm.
Alexander Grant would pay for this. With everything he had.
