Chapter 2 - The Man Beside My SUV
Dominic called eleven times before I reached the townhouse.
I ignored every call.
The place belonged to my father, though almost nobody knew he still kept it in Manhattan. It was quiet, private, and staffed by exactly one person that afternoon—a retired Army nurse named Clara who had known me since I was twelve.
She opened the door and saw my face.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
That was all it took.
I cried.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
I cried while she helped me upstairs.
I cried while she checked my incision.
I cried while Leo slept beside me in a bassinet.
Then I stopped.
Clara handed me soup.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
For the first time all day, I smiled.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Dominic.
Then Victoria.
Then Celeste.
Then Dominic again.
Finally, a text appeared.
WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?
I stared at it.
Another came.
Some lawyer just took the SUV.
Another.
CALL ME NOW.
I set the phone face down.
Across town, Dominic was apparently discovering a fact he had spent seven years forgetting.
Using something did not make it his.
My father arrived forty minutes later.
Charles Brooks was sixty-eight, broad-shouldered, silver-haired, and still carried himself like he could walk into chaos and make everybody stand straighter.
But when he entered my room, he did not look like a general.
He looked like my dad.
He sat beside the bed and looked at Leo first.
Then at me.
His jaw tightened.
“You’re pale.”
“I had surgery.”
“I know.”
“And I’m tired.”
“I know.”
“And if you start talking about how you warned me—”
“I won’t.”
That broke something open in my chest.
He reached for my hand.
“I warned you because I was scared for you. I’m not glad I was right.”
I swallowed.
“Dominic asked about a wedding loan.”
Dad’s face changed.
“What wedding loan?”
“He texted that you owed him money.”
Dad leaned back slowly.
“I never borrowed a dollar from that man.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then why would he say that?”
“Good question.”
A woman appeared in the doorway carrying a leather folder.
Dad stood.
“Audrey, this is Rachel Kim.”
I recognized the name.
One of the best family-law attorneys in New York.
Rachel sat across from me.
“I’m sorry we’re meeting today.”
“So am I.”
Her tone was calm, practical.
“Your father filled me in. Before we discuss divorce, I need to tell you something about the apartment.”
I braced myself.
“The apartment is not marital property.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“The condominium was purchased eighteen months before your marriage through the Brooks Family Property Trust. You were granted sole beneficial occupancy.”
I stared at my father.
“You told me you helped with the down payment.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t say you bought it.”
“You wanted independence.”
Rachel opened the folder.
“Dominic is not an owner.”
My heart started pounding.
“But he has lived there seven years.”
“Yes, which means we handle possession through proper legal process. We do not throw his belongings onto the sidewalk. We do not change locks tonight. We do everything correctly.”
I nodded.
That mattered to me.
I did not want revenge.
I wanted out.
Rachel turned another page.
“Now the SUV. Titled solely to you. Purchased before marriage. No lien. Your husband had permission to use it, which you revoked today. The attorney in the parking lot recovered it peacefully.”
I imagined Dominic outside Le Cirque.
Probably red-faced.
Probably humiliated.
A tiny part of me enjoyed that.
Then Rachel’s expression hardened.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
She slid a paper toward me.
It was a financial statement.
My name appeared beneath a signature.
I stared at it.
“That isn’t my signature.”
Dad went still.
Rachel nodded.
“I didn’t think so.”
“What is it?”
“An application for a private credit line. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“In my name?”
“In both names.”
“I never signed that.”
“The account was opened nine months ago.”
I looked at Dad.
He said nothing.
Rachel continued.
“Most of the funds were transferred into Dominic’s company.”
My mouth went dry.
“How much is left?”
“Approximately nineteen thousand.”
I stared at the page.
My phone started ringing again.
Dominic.
Rachel looked at it.
“Don’t answer yet.”
The call stopped.
Then a voicemail arrived.
I listened on speaker.
Dominic’s voice exploded into the room.
“Audrey, I don’t know what childish stunt you’re pulling, but you have thirty minutes to return my car. You understand me? My car. And if your little retired bureaucrat father is behind this, tell him I’m not scared of him.”
Dad’s eyes lifted.
Rachel looked from him to me.
Nobody spoke.
Then another voicemail arrived.
This time Dominic sounded colder.
“And you better come home tonight. If you try to keep my son from me, I’ll make sure every judge in New York knows exactly how unstable you’ve been since giving birth.”
The message ended.
Leo stirred in the bassinet.
I felt something colder than anger.
Fear.
Rachel reached for my phone.
“May I preserve that?”
I nodded.
She saved the recording.
Then she looked at me.
“Audrey, I need you to answer one question carefully.”
“What?”
“Has Dominic ever threatened to use your mental health, your pregnancy, or your medical condition against you before?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Because suddenly I remembered something he had said three weeks before Leo was born.
Something I had dismissed.
Something about making sure doctors knew I was “emotional.”
My stomach tightened.
Rachel saw it on my face.
“What did he do?”
Before I could answer, Clara rushed into the room holding my tablet.
“You need to see this.”
She turned the screen toward us.
The camera feed from my apartment was live.
Dominic had returned home.
May you like
He was standing in the nursery.
And he was ripping something out of the wall.
