Chapter 8 - The Price of Treason
"Marisol, wait! Don't hang up!" Royce pleaded, his voice breaking into genuine sobs. People in the Scottsdale terminal were staring at the grown man in a crumpled designer suit crying into his phone. "We can fix this! We can go to counseling! I'll fire Kira tonight! I'll transfer every share of the company into your name! Just unfreeze one card so I can get a flight home! I want to be there when our boy is born!"
Marisol looked down at her stomach. The baby shifted, a gentle, rhythmic flutter against her palm.
"You will not be in the delivery room, Royce," Marisol said quietly. "A man who abandons his wife while she carries his child does not earn the privilege of watching him enter the world. Patricia Odum has filed for full sole legal and physical custody. You will have supervised visitation at a court-designated facility in Hartford once every two weeks, provided you pass regular drug and psychological evaluations."
"You can't do that to me! I'm his father!"
"A father protects his family, Royce. You spent seven years protecting your ego." Marisol set her tea mug down with a soft click. "The locks on the Madison house were changed at noon. Your personal belongings have been packed into three storage units in New Haven. The keys are at Patricia's office. Do not return to this property. If you step onto this driveway, the Madison police will arrest you for violation of the domestic protection order."
"Marisol, please—"
"Take the red-eye commercial flight home, Royce. If you have enough cash for a middle seat."
She ended the call.
She tapped the screen once, adding his number to her blocked contacts. Then she took a deep, full breath—the first breath in six weeks that didn't feel constricted by terror, doubt, or heartbreak. The air in her home tasted clean, sweet, and entirely hers.
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Two days later, the news hit the regional business journals: “Royce Vega Ousted from Vega Development Amid Financial Restructuring; Marisol Vega Appointed Board Chair.” The local social circles that had once bowed to Royce’s charm suddenly turned cold. Banks severed ties with his private ventures, and former associates refused to return his calls. When the forensic audit concluded, Kira Sandival was forced to disgorge two hundred and forty thousand dollars in embezzled consulting fees, fleeing Connecticut in disgrace to move back in with her parents in Ohio.
Royce was left with a modest settlement: a twenty-percent non-voting interest in a secondary commercial strip mall that generated just enough income to pay his legal fees and monthly child support obligations. The private jet, the luxury cars, and the penthouse lifestyle were gone forever.
