Chapter 6 - The Dismissal of Ethan Prescott
By noon, the news vans had swarmed the gates of the Prescott estate, broadcasting live aerial footage of the federal seizure across every major news network in the country.
“Breaking Financial News: Caldwell-Hart assets frozen amid sweeping federal racketeering probe; Prescott family empire collapses overnight...”
I sat in a quiet consultation room at Mercy General Hospital, watching the muted broadcast on a wall-mounted television while Emily slept peacefully in the next room, her pain medication finally allowing her body to rest.
The door opened softly.
Ethan stood in the threshold. He wasn't wearing his custom suits or his expensive watch. He wore a standard gray cotton hoodie, his hands shoved deep into the front pocket, looking smaller, paler, and infinitely more pathetic than he had in any boardroom.
He looked at me, then glanced toward the open door of Emily’s room.
"I'm not here to see her," Ethan said quickly, his voice shaking. "The federal marshals said... they said I have five minutes to drop off the signed separation papers before the bail hearing."
I didn't invite him to sit down. I remained seated at the small table, my hands folded neatly over a leather portfolio containing the divorce and asset-waiver documents Victoria had drafted three hours earlier.
"Sign them," I said.
Ethan hesitated, stepping cautiously into the room. He looked at the papers, his eyes scanning the clauses that stripped him of every last dime, every share of stock, every vehicle, and every legal claim to our daughter's life.
"This leaves me with nothing," Ethan whispered, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "I'll be facing ten years in federal prison with zero liquidity. How am I supposed to pay my defense attorneys?"
"That sounds like a difficult, uncomfortable problem," I replied evenly. "Perhaps you should try falling."
Ethan flinched as if I had struck him across the face. He swallowed hard, picking up the pen with trembling fingers.
"She... she loved me once, you know," Ethan muttered, signing his name at the bottom of the first page with a scratchy, hurried stroke. "In the beginning. Before the company started failing. Before Mom got involved."
"Love isn't something you lock in a guesthouse, Ethan," I said, watching the ink soak into the paper. "Love isn't something you use as collateral for a commercial loan. You didn't love Emily. You consumed her, the same way you consumed every contractor, every investor, and every family business in this state."
Ethan finished signing the final page, dropped the pen onto the table, and let out a long, ragged breath. He looked up at me, his eyes pleading for a scrap of mercy that simply didn't exist in my universe.
"Is she going to be okay?" he asked, nodding toward Emily’s room.
May you like
"Better than okay," I stood up, gathering the papers and sliding them back into the leather folder. "Because she won't ever have to look at your face, listen to your lies, or fear for her life in her own home ever again."
Ethan turned slowly toward the door. Without another word, he walked out of the hospital room, his head bowed, disappearing down the sterile hallway toward an elevator that would take him down to a world where his money, his name, and his lies had finally run out of currency.
