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Chapter 23
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2025-09-28 05:47:45
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Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 37
Thora’s POVI did not remember the way I got to the car.I could not recall how my hand was held by Cara and she led me into the doors of the courthouse. I had no recollection of the stair, or the crowds to whom I must have been as familiar as your own name, or of the guards screaming at me to move aside.Everything but the headline had been swallowed down my mind.It was like someone had held a hot iron on my eyes.“UNSTABLE.”That was the word they chose.The lie he fed them.The knife he twisted slowly.We had not even passed the first crossroad and Cara was already on the telephone, talking in top gear, sharp and clipped.--issue immediately the provisional statement. Drafted or not, it goes out now. And to the judge of injunction appeal. This amounts to violation of medical privacy. Yes. Yes, Thora is with me. No, no, she has not answered anything. And she won’t.”I stared out the window.People pass by as though the world was normal. A woman pushing a stroller. A boy laughing in
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 36
Thora’s POVI didn’t sleep.Not even a minute.When the sky turned bruised and changed to a pale violet, I had been lying on the couch for hours, and I was just staring at the ceiling, while listening to the refrigerator hum as it was the only constant thing in my life. Whenever I closed my eyes I found Quentin at that table, composed, smooth, sure that the judge would bring him all he desired.A light weight squashed against my legs.Avis.At some point in the early morning she had got on the couch, and nestled into me with her stuffed bear under her chin. She drew a very gentle, gentle breath which had not been at all affected by the storm that was eating my world away.I brushed her hair gently. Mama must go out to-day, I said. “But I’ll be back. I promise.”She did not rouse herself, but curled up.I had a stone in my throat at that promise.At seven, I forced myself up. Washed my face. Shivering hands put on clothes. The reflection presented in the mirror was of a person I hardly
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 35
Thora’s POVMonday morning felt too bright.It was the kind of brightness meant for peaceful breakfasts, for sunshine falling softly across a balcony—not for an emergency hearing and lawyers handing you paper bags to breathe into.I woke up before my alarm. Not because I had gotten enough rest....I hadn’t, but because my body had forgotten how to sleep days ago.The envelope from yesterday still sat on the counter, the black emblem pressing against my chest like a weight:FAMILY COURT — Emergency Hearing Notice.I didn’t open it. I didn’t need to. The words were carved into my mind.Avis sat at the table kicking her legs, humming between bites of toast overloaded with jam. She looked soft, unbothered, the way a child should be. Seeing her like that sent a cold line down my spine.I wasn’t losing her.Not to headlines.Not to lawyers.Not to Quentin.Cara entered without waiting for an invitation, clutching a folder to her chest, her expression already telling me the day was burning.“
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 34
Cara’s POVWhen the office was emptied it was near the middle of the night. The copy machine had now died down to a hum and the only sounds that remained were the ticking of the wall clock and the humming low hiss of the city beyond. I had asked everybody to retire to his home hours ago, but I could do nothing until I had heard.Someone in this room had sold Thora Greenwood’s life for a few thousand dollars.The thought made my stomach twist. I’d built this firm on discretion our reputation was our shield—and now that shield was cracked.I opened my laptop and pulled up the payroll system again. Five employees, all loyal, or so I’d believed. I checked log-ins, file access, printer history. The same name kept popping up: Rita Bennett.Junior clerk. Fresh out of community college. Always early, always polite, always grateful for the job.And apparently, easily bought.Her access trail led straight to the sealed medical summary we’d used to draft Thora’s first motion for custody relief.
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 33
Thora’s POV The noise began even earlier than I was awake. Not the common reporters screaming in the street--this was more to the point. My cell-phone continued buzzing on the nightstand until it dropped on the ground. The screen was illuminated with the name of Cara: CALL ME NOW. My stomach sank. I sat up, and my heart already racing, and the heavy ache of dread crawling under my skin. Her voice was quick and monotonic, as lawyers have when they are attempting never to panic. Please do not open your email, do not check the social media. Just—listen.” “What happened?” “There’s a leak. Photos of you at an out-patient clinic last month. The story is already all around. “What narrative?” The reason you were there was a breakdown. There are stores which are claiming that it is substance based. One’s hinting self-harm.” I went silent. The image of that occasion came back, the little clinic, the 30-minute visit, the check-up of the pregnancy. I had come early so I could get
Step Aside, dear ex Chapter 32
Luke’s POVThe text kept replaying in my head.Tell her the next one’s mine.It didn’t matter how many times I read it—three words, eight letters of threat—and I could hear Quentin saying them. Calm, certain, the way he used to announce a business merger.I ought to have been frank with Thora. I just had a feeling that maybe it was a mind game, a bluff. The other part knew better.I was sitting in my car, outside my office, with my hands around my steering wheel, the engine off. The wind-glass was falling down the rain in long fine hair. The whole city appeared to be on tenterhooks.My phone buzzed again—Cara’s assistant. I ignored it. I’d already learned that whoever touched Thora’s case ended up under Quentin’s microscope. I had to know the depth of that microscope.Inside, my office still smelled faintly of varnish and old coffee. The receptionist waved; I nodded without stopping. My desk light glowed over a stack of contracts I hadn’t touched in days. None of it mattered now.I to
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