Chapter 2
At dinnertime, Arthur walked through the front door.
Humming cheerfully, he scooped Leo off the living room floor, tossed him into the air, and laughed.
"How are my two favorite people in the world?" Arthur asked.
He kissed my forehead.
His lips felt like absolute poison against my skin.
It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to physically attack him.
Instead, I forced a composed smile onto my face.
"We had a great day," I said.
I watched him play the role of the devoted father.
It was terrifying how easily he could lie to my face.
That night, while Arthur was asleep, I went to my home office.
I didn't hire a divorce attorney.
Family court judges only care about splitting assets in half.
If we divorced, Arthur would demand joint custody of Leo.
Because I had legally adopted him, we were both his legal parents.
He would take half of my money and would move Mia into whatever house he bought with my hard-earned assets.
They would live happily as a family.
The thought of sharing the son I had raised with the woman who destroyed my life was unbearable. Rather than let that happen, I opened my laptop, reviewed the adoption paperwork, and traced the routing numbers of the $100,000 wire transfer.
Back then, I had paid the fee without a second thought.
It went to a small LLC registered in Nevada.
I looked up the public business records.
The registered agent was Paul.
Paul was Arthur's younger brother.
A sickening realization hit me like a physical blow to the chest.
His entire family knew.
Arthur's mother used to be incredibly cruel to me about my infertility.
But the day we brought Leo home, her attitude changed.
She doted on Leo completely.
Last Christmas, she had too much wine and whispered in my ear.
"You are so lucky Arthur stayed with you despite your broken body," she said.
The words mocked me to my face; all along, she knew she was holding her biological grandson.
They all helped him package this child as a miracle adoption.
A fresh wave of nausea rolled through me. I was surrounded by monsters.
Every family dinner rearranged itself in my memory.
Helen's pitying smiles, Paul's sudden generosity, and Arthur's careful silences were no longer separate moments.
They were parts of the same performance.
I had not married one liar.
I had been welcomed into an entire family that treated my pain like a private joke.
The next morning, I drove to my law firm.
I walked straight into Vivian's office.
Vivian was the senior partner at my firm.
A former ruthless federal prosecutor, she did not handle divorces.
I slid a thick file across her mahogany desk.
Vivian read the documents in silence.
Her face turned pale.
"Nora, this is sick," she whispered.
"This isn't a divorce case anymore," I said.
"I know," she replied. "It is a criminal case."
Vivian nodded and grabbed a pen.
She wrote down the legal realities.
Wire fraud.
Falsifying state adoption records.
Conspiracy to defraud.
"If we take this to the feds, Arthur and his brother will face years in federal prison," she warned.
"And Mia?" I asked.
"She received the stolen funds across state lines," Vivian said. "She is a criminal accomplice."
Leaning back in my leather chair, I made the decision: my husband and his mistress were going behind bars. I was going to take away his freedom.