Chapter 4 - Severing the Ties
Three days later, I discharged myself from the hospital.
I refused to use the Callaway townhome. I refused to let their private driver take me. Instead, Odette drove us in her reliable, slightly battered SUV. We drove away from the towering glass skyscrapers of Manhattan, heading north toward the rolling hills of upstate New York, where my uncle Elliot’s estate lay.
The estate, known as Vance Manor, was a stunning, historic stone house surrounded by hundreds of acres of ancient maple forests. It was quiet, peaceful, and entirely mine.
Josephine Nadeir was waiting for us when we arrived. She had a fire crackling in the hearth and a table covered in neat stacks of legal documents.
“You look tired, Sable,” Josephine said gently, handing me a warm cup of herbal tea while Odette settled Marlo into a beautifully prepared crib in the living room.
“I am,” I admitted, sitting down at the massive oak table. “But I’m ready.”
Josephine opened the first folder. “The master lease agreement is ironclad. Your uncle Elliot knew Arthur Callaway was a snake. He knew the Callaway family would eventually try to squeeze the Vance family out of the partnership. He structured this lease so that the moment the Callaways acted in bad faith, we could trigger a default.”
“What constitutes bad faith?” I asked.
“Denying a legitimate heir of the Vance line their rightful place, or attempting to hide assets through off-the-books entities—which Weston has been doing for the last eighteen months to fund his affair and set up Camille’s child.”
I felt a sickening jolt in my stomach, but I kept my composure. “He used company funds for Camille?”
“Millions,” Josephine said, sliding a bank statement across the table. “He bought her a five-million-dollar penthouse in Tribeca, registered under a shell company. He used Callaway Holdings’ capital to do it. By doing so, he violated the terms of the land trust. He literally handed us the key to lock them out of their own kingdom.”
“What is our first step?”
“We file for divorce,” Josephine smiled, a sharp, brilliant flash of white teeth. “But not just any divorce. We file for a dissolution of marriage on the grounds of extreme cruelty and marital waste. And at the exact same moment, we serve Callaway Holdings with a Notice of Default on the land leases.”
I looked out the window at the snow beginning to fall gently over the maple trees. I thought of Weston’s confident, arrogant laugh in the hospital room.
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“Like women recovering from childbirth were too weak to change their lives.”
“Do it,” I said. “Show them how weak I am.”
