Chapter 9 - The House Cleared
I walked out of the high-rise into the bright afternoon sunlight. The air felt clean, crisp, and wonderfully pure.
By 3:30 PM, Marcus Vance called my cell phone.
“The wire just cleared, Claire,” Marcus reported, a deep satisfaction resonating in his gravelly voice. “Exactly $2,140,000 has been deposited into the LuminaTech master operating account. Furthermore, Walter’s office just couriered over the executed divorce agreements. Corbin surrendered every single claim to the real estate, the intellectual property, and all personal vehicles. The judge has already expedited the decree on the basis of uncontested asset segregation.”
“And the retraction?” I asked.
“The editor of The Citizen Voice nearly wept when our litigation notice hit his fax machine,” Marcus chuckled. “The online article has been scrubbed, and a full editorial apology clearing your name, your company, and your residence of all wrongdoing is running on the front page of tomorrow’s print edition.”
“Good,” I said. “Thank you, Marcus. For everything.”
When I arrived home at Crestview Drive around five o'clock, the news vans were gone. In their place stood a large, commercial moving truck parked on the street outside my iron gates.
Two uniformed private security guards stood by my front door, ensuring that Corbin’s professional movers took only what belonged to him: his clothes, his personal golf clubs, and his private electronic gadgets. Not a single painting, not a single piece of antique furniture, and not a single piece of my father’s legacy was touched.
Corbin stood by the back of the moving van, looking disheveled, defeated, and utterly broken. When he saw my car pull into the circular driveway, he took a tentative step toward me, but the two security guards immediately stepped forward, blocking his path.
I rolled down my window just an inch.
“Claire,” he said, his voice hoarse and cracked. “Where am I supposed to go? Walter’s partners are forcing him out of the firm over the ethics complaint. Diane won't even look at me. I have nothing left.”
May you like
“You have what you brought into this marriage, Corbin,” I replied evenly. “A suitcase full of clothes and an empty conscience. Be off my property in five minutes.”
I drove past him, pressed the remote to close the heavy wrought-iron gates, and watched through the rearview mirror as the bars locked into place, sealing the parasites out of my life forever.
