Chapter 2
Three days after the divorce, Sarah's social media feed was blowing up.
One day, she was at the beach. Next, she was on a private jet.
Then, her new man gave her a limited-edition bag, and she was grinning like a twenty-year-old, clutching it like it was the best thing in the world.
The comments section was full of praise for her, as always.
[Girl, you look so happy!]
[This is the life you deserve.]
[Some people never deserved you—should've left him ages ago.]
Yeah, they meant me.
That was me they were talking about.
I was scrolling through her feed and saw those comments while eating a hamburger.
With an extra egg, of course.
Halfway through my burger, my phone buzzed. It was Brian Cole, my buddy from middle school.
"Holy shit, Lucas, you're divorced?" he shouted.
Word sure got around fast.
"Yeah," I replied.
"Who's that guy your ex-wife keeps posting about? The one with the Porsche?"
"I have no clue."
"Seriously, you don't know him, or are you just pretending?"
"I swear, I don't know him. Honestly, I'd kinda like to find out myself."
Brian let out a breath on the other end.
"Bro, I'll be real with you. I did some digging. The guy's name is Andrew Foster. He works in finance and has his own private equity firm. Sounds pretty impressive, right?"
"Yeah."
"But I asked around in the industry, and nobody's ever heard of him. I mean, for someone in finance, isn't that a bit sketchy?"
"Not my problem anymore," I said, cutting him off.
Brian let out a sigh. "Man, you seem way more chill than I expected. Honestly, I was worried you'd lose it."
"I'm totally fine," I said.
"Alright, let's grab a drink sometime."
"Sounds good."
After hanging up, I ate the last bit of my burger.
Honestly, I already knew all that stuff Brian was talking about.
Andrew.
Thirty-seven years old.
His resume claimed he was an overseas-educated finance whiz.
Last year, his company was barely scraping by with less than one million dollars in net assets, and this year's audit looked even uglier.
He cozied up to Sarah—people might call it "true love" if they're being generous.
But let's be honest—Sarah's company was valued at 120 million dollars last year.
Truth was, at least half of that 120 million dollars came straight from me.
But Sarah had no clue.
Andrew probably didn't know either.
They saw it as a cash cow.
But what they didn't realize was that I'd already pulled out the roots.
*****
Five days after the divorce, Sarah's head of tech handed in his resignation.
It wasn't my doing. That guy ran away by himself.
The day their backend contract expired, the system crashed for four hours straight.
All their client data went dark, and three projects that were in progress came to a screeching halt.
The tech lead realized there was no way to get a backup system up and running anytime soon, so he started firing off resumes overnight.
He walked out the next morning.
I knew all this firsthand—James Harper, the tech lead, was my old college buddy.
I was the one who recommended him to Sarah back then.
When James told me all this, he sounded conflicted.
"Lucas, things are a mess over at her company right now," he said.
"Well, she's my ex-wife now. Not my business anymore," I replied.
"Alright. The operations team is freaking out—all the data feeds are down, they can't pull any reports, and the clients are breathing down their necks."
"Why are you even telling me this?"
"Just giving you a heads up. And—" he paused, "Andrew's been showing up at the office in his Porsche every day, saying he's going to help Ms. Young rebuild the team. But the people he brought in, honestly, I talked to them when I was still there, and their tech skills are a total joke."
I took a sip of my tea. "James, you're free now. Want to come work for me?"
"I've been waiting for you to say that for three days."
*****
On the seventh day after the divorce, Sarah finally called me again.
She sounded exhausted.
"Lucas, can we talk for a minute?" she asked.
"Talk about what?" I kept my tone flat.
"Could you maybe extend the tech support for just one more month? I've got a new team lined up, but I need a little more time to get them up to speed."
"Sarah, we agreed on a one-week grace period. Today is day seven."
"I know, but—"
"But what?"
She fell silent.
It took her a long moment before she finally spoke. "Lucas, are you just out for revenge?"
I couldn't help but laugh. "Revenge for what? You asked for the divorce, and I said yes. The contract's up—it's just business not to renew. You really think that's revenge?"
"You know I can't keep things running without these—"
"Did you even stop to think about any of this when you asked for the divorce?"
Sarah was quiet on the other end.
I leaned back in my chair, feeling calm. "Sarah, let me give you some advice."
"What is it?"
"Why don't you ask your new boyfriend? Isn't he supposed to be Mr. Finance? Stuff like raising money and tech deals should be right up his alley."
She didn't say anything.
"Seriously, don't always come to your ex-husband for help. It doesn't look good," I added.
I hung up.
The sky outside was a perfect blue.
It had been seven years.
I invested so much money, energy, and connections in her, but she never cared enough to notice—or even bother keeping track.
She always believed all that was just the result of the company's "natural growth."
Now I let her have it.
She could walk this road herself.
I wanted to see how long Young & Co. could survive without me.
*****
That night, Sarah posted on her feed.
It was a picture of Andrew with his arm draped over her shoulders.
The caption said, [With you here, nothing scares me.]
I set my phone aside.
Then I opened my laptop and checked Young & Co.'s supplier payment list for the month.
She owed 1.5 million dollars to her suppliers next month.
But there was barely 0.5 million dollars left in the bank.
Back then, my company was the one covering that gap.
She never had a clue.
She was in the dark about everything.
Honestly, it was pretty sad.