Chapter 17 — The Reckoning
The unraveling, once it started, was thorough, and it was entirely lawful, which Odette found she preferred.
She had not needed to do a single reckless thing.
She had only needed to be patient, and to keep the receipts, and to let the truth do to them what they had spent years doing to her.
The divorce moved with the force of the documentation behind it.
Because the marriage was under a joint-property agreement and Odette had recorded every dollar she’d contributed, the court froze the accounts, examined the fraudulent transfers, and voided the studio lease.
Dorian was ordered to repay the hundred and thirty thousand dollars, to liquidate his personal investments, and to forfeit his share of the Greenwich house.
And when his own firm learned — as firms do — that he had run personal travel with Lyra through his corporate expense accounts, an internal audit ended his executive career in a single afternoon.
He appeared at mediation gaunt and stripped of his charm, first denying the theft, then calling it “family investment,” until Imani laid out the messages in which he’d promised Lyra they would run away together the day the studio opened.
“Sign a reasonable settlement,” his own lawyer told him quietly, “or all of this gets read aloud in open court.” He signed.