Chapter 3

Lucy took a deep breath. "This is an investment! It's for a better future for us!"

She suddenly smiled, her voice turning gentle. "Tell you what. You sign the papers, and I'll call the agent right away and rent the place your mom likes. I'm not just renting it. I'll pay three years upfront.

"I'll get her the latest high-end smart massage chair, too, plus another 100,000 dollars in spending money. How does that sound?"

She was trying to use 800 dollars in rent to get me to sign a guarantee that could bankrupt us.

What did she take me for? A dog she could buy off with a bone?

I laughed in anger and pushed the agreement back toward her. "Lucy, do you know what kind of work I'm best at?"

She stalled.

I looked straight into her eyes. "Corporate bankruptcy liquidation. I've seen too many investors like you—people who got carried away and ended up losing everything. Even the clothes on their backs."

Lucy's face turned hard and gray in an instant. "Caleb Hatcher, don't be so ungrateful! I'm trying to help you jump classes!"

Her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen, then smirked.

"Your uncle just called me. I declined it. Probably chasing me about your mom's rental. Think it over. I'm not going to wait forever."

Lucy had barely finished speaking when my phone buzzed. It was a photo from Uncle Gary.

In the picture, Mom sat alone in the stairwell of the old building. Her head was lowered, her back slumped, the whole scene bleak and quiet.

There was a line of text underneath.

"Caleb, your mom's bad knee is acting up again. She's in so much pain she can't make it downstairs. You make millions a year, yet you won't even rent her a place with an elevator. It's embarrassing for the family…"

My chest tightened so hard that I couldn't catch my breath.

…

At 2:00 am, I lay there listening to Lucy's steady breathing beside me. I couldn't sleep.

She was right next to me, but it felt like we were worlds apart.

I slipped into the study.

Her laptop was still on, an encrypted folder sitting open on the screen. I tried our wedding anniversary, her birthday, and her mother's birthday. None of them worked.

On a whim, I typed in the date I signed the "Family Asset Management Agreement".

With a click, the folder opened. Inside was a packet titled "Formal Complaint Materials", prepared for submission to the bar association.

"Complainant: Lucy Glaser.

"Respondent: Caleb Hatcher."

Lucy had taken several of the toughest cases from my career and ripped them out of context, twisting them into alleged major professional misconduct.

She had also attached several audio and video clips as evidence.

One clip showed me breaking down at home after losing a case, shouting in frustration. She framed it as emotional instability and proof that I lacked professional competence.

Another clip came from a moment when I vented to her about a client's unreasonable demands. She cut it to paint me as someone who held clients in contempt and lacked professional ethics.

What made it truly lethal was a hidden clause Lucy cited from the "Family Asset Management Agreement".

"If either party—for reasons attributable to that party alone—has its professional license revoked or suspended, the other party shall automatically obtain sole and exclusive authority over the family trust fund in order to avoid joint risk to family assets."

She was trying to ruin my career, get my law license revoked, and then legally take everything we owned!

A chill shot up my spine. I forced myself to calm down. My instincts as a lawyer took over.

I took a deep breath, encrypted and bundled all the files, uploaded them to my private cloud, then wiped every trace of activity from the computer.

Just as I closed the laptop, the study door opened.

Lucy stood there in her robe, leaning against the doorframe. She asked lazily, "What are you looking for? You woke me up."