Chapter 3

I sat at a corner table in the small Fifth Avenue café, my hands wrapped around a porcelain cup of tea I hadn't touched. Through the window, I watched New Yorkers hurry past, their lives continuing in blissful ignorance while mine imploded. The café buzzed with quiet conversation, but I heard nothing except the echo of William's words from last night.

'Maybe if you'd given me a son, my parents would have someone worth showing up for.'

The tea had gone cold by the time Jessica Thorne arrived. I'd chosen her carefully—the most discreet and ruthless divorce attorney in Manhattan, known for handling high-profile splits with surgical precision. She slid into the seat across from me, her tailored navy suit and minimal jewelry projecting exactly the understated power I needed.

"Mrs. Sterling," she said, extending her hand. Her grip was firm, her eyes assessing.

"Ms. Morgan," I corrected, using my maiden name for the first time in decades. "I prefer Catherine."

A slight smile touched her lips. "Good. That's where we start."

She ordered an espresso and waited until the server was out of earshot before continuing.

"I've reviewed the information you sent," she said, her voice pitched low. "Twenty years of marriage, one child nearly of age, substantial commingled assets, and a company you helped found but where you hold no official title."

I nodded, the familiar shame washing over me. How had I allowed myself to become so invisible in my own life?

"And now there's a second family," she continued, "with a child approximately six years old."

"Five," I corrected, the number burning like acid on my tongue. Five years of lies. Five years of William playing devoted father to another woman's child while treating Madison like an afterthought.

Jessica opened a leather portfolio and slid several documents toward me. "Here's what we're looking at. New York is an equitable distribution state, which works in your favor given your contribution to both the marriage and the business."

I scanned the timeline she'd prepared, the strategy laid out in clinical bullet points. Discovery. Financial disclosure. Negotiation. Trial, if necessary. Months of my life reduced to legal procedures.

"The most important thing right now," Jessica said, leaning forward, "is that you protect yourself. William will try to hide assets. He'll claim the company was his vision alone. He'll use his relationship with your daughter as leverage."

"Madison will choose me," I said with quiet certainty.

"Even so, we need to be prepared." She tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the document. "I need you to gather evidence. Financial records. Communications. Anything that proves your contribution to Sterling Technologies."

I thought of the countless strategy documents I'd authored under William's name. The investor relationships I'd cultivated. The midnight hours spent refining presentations he would deliver.

"I can do that," I said.

"Good." Jessica's eyes were sharp, calculating. "Because make no mistake, Catherine. This will be war."

---

Later that night, after Madison had gone to bed and William had texted that he was "working late," I slipped into my home office and locked the door. The blue glow from my computer screen cast shadows across the room as I entered my credentials into the Sterling Technologies server.

For years, I'd maintained access to every level of the company's digital infrastructure. William, for all his business acumen, had always been technologically inept. He'd never bothered to revoke my administrator privileges, assuming I wouldn't understand how to use them.

One by one, I downloaded spreadsheets, contracts, email threads. Board meeting minutes where my suggestions appeared under William's name. Financial transfers that didn't match the company's public disclosures. And then I found it—a series of transactions to a Cayman Islands account, each coinciding with major company milestones.

My hands froze over the keyboard. William wasn't just hiding his affair. He was hiding money.

With methodical precision, I downloaded everything onto an encrypted drive. Each file was a piece of armor I would need for the battle ahead. Each document, a weapon.

As I worked, a strange calm settled over me. For twenty years, I had been the perfect wife—supportive, forgiving, invisible. I had dimmed my own light to let William shine. I had swallowed my pride when Victoria flaunted their relationship. I had comforted Madison when her father's indifference cut too deep.

But no more.

The download completed with a soft chime. I removed the drive and slipped it into the false bottom of my jewelry box—hidden among the diamonds William had given me to apologize for missed anniversaries and forgotten birthdays.

War, Jessica had called it. She was wrong.

This wasn't war.

This was liberation.