Chapter 3 - The Desperate Siphon
The cold November wind whipped down 72nd Street, tearing at Jason’s unbuttoned tuxedo jacket as he leaned heavily against the wrought-iron security gate of the townhome.
His bow tie was undone, hanging limply around his neck like a noose. His hair, normally styled with expensive pomade, fell in damp, erratic strands across his forehead. Through the reinforced steel bars, he could see the amber lights glowing warmly inside the marble foyer.
When the heavy mahogany door clicked open, Jason surged forward, grabbing the bars.
“Rebecca!” he pleaded, his voice thick with bourbon and panic. “Rebecca, let me in! We need to talk! Those guards... those idiots had no right to lay hands on me! Do you know what’s happening out there? Vance suspended me! They suspended my badge!”
I walked slowly down the four stone steps into the courtyard, stopping five paces from the iron gate. Two security officers stood silently in the shadows behind me.
“You shouldn't be driving, Jason,” I said, my voice cutting cleanly through the whistling wind.
“Screw driving!” he yelled, slamming his hand against the iron. “What did you do in that ballroom? Who was that woman with the portfolio? What is Sullivan Capital?”
I looked at him with genuine curiosity. “Did you really never check? In eleven years, did you never once look at the deed to this house, or the legal registrations of our marital assets?”
“You told me your family had passive trusts!” he screamed, his face contorting in rage and confusion. “You told me your father was an academic!”
“My father was a professor of macroeconomics who inherited forty percent of Sullivan Steel and converted it into private equity before he died,” I replied evenly. “I never lied to you, Jason. You simply never listened. Whenever I spoke about finance, your eyes glazed over. You wanted a cheerleader, not a peer. You wanted a wife who looked pretty at charity galas and stayed quiet while you pretended to be a titan.”
Jason swallowed hard, his throat bobbing frantically. He let go of the bars and ran both hands through his hair. The reality was beginning to dawn on him, slow and suffocating, like water rising in a sealed room.
“Okay... okay,” he said, shifting his tone, trying on the voice he used when closing hesitant corporate clients. “I made a mistake, Rebecca. Madison... she meant nothing. She was an assistant. She threw herself at me! She was convenient, all right? You were always so distant after the clinics. You stopped touching me! You spent weeks staring out the window! I was lonely, Rebecca!”
The sheer audacity of the excuse didn't even anger me. It was so perfectly, predictably Jason.
“You held her stomach,” I reminded him, my voice dangerously calm. “You told me in front of six hundred of your colleagues that if I struck her after she assaulted me, you would divorce me. You stood beside her while she mocked my miscarriages.”
Jason flinched, the wind biting into his cheeks.
“I was trying to protect the company!” he lied desperately, his voice cracking. “There were cameras, Rebecca! She’s carrying a child—if she fell, if something happened to the baby on company property, the liability would have ruined us! I was protecting *us*!”
“There is no ‘us,’ Jason,” I said.
A silver towncar pulled up to the curb behind him, its headlights cutting through the darkness. The rear door opened, and Madison stepped out, wrapped in a cheap trench coat over her silver gown, shivering violently.
“Jason!” she called out, her voice high and panicked. “My banking app just locked me out! My cards are declined! They said my accounts are frozen under an emergency civil injunction! What is going on?”
Jason didn't turn around. He kept his eyes glued to mine, begging with every remaining shred of his pride.
“Rebecca... please. Call off Arthur Vance. Call off your lawyers. We can sign a post-nuptial agreement. I’ll sign whatever you want. Madison will get an abortion—we’ll pay her off, she’ll disappear! We can start over!”
Behind him, Madison froze on the sidewalk, her jaw dropping in utter horror.
“What did you just say?” she shrieked, stumbling toward the gate. “An abortion? Jason, you told me you loved me! You told me she was barren and dried up! You told me this was our house!”
Jason spun around, his eyes wild with fury. “Shut your mouth, you stupid cow! You ruined everything! You weren't supposed to approach her tonight! You were supposed to wait until the contract was signed!”
“You thief!” Madison screamed back, lunging toward him, her acrylic nails clawing at his lapels. “You promised me ten million dollars! You made me sign those Cayman papers!”
I watched them from behind the safety of the iron gate. The two of them, grappling in the cold November wind on the pavement, tearing at each other’s throats like starved dogs over an empty bowl.
“Thomas,” I said softly.
“Yes, Ms. Sullivan?”
“Call the precinct now. Have them removed for trespassing and disturbing the peace.”
“Right away, ma’am.”
May you like
I turned and walked back up the stone steps toward the warm, brightly lit interior of the townhome. Behind me, the screams of my husband and his mistress dissolved into the wail of approaching sirens.
***
