All Chapters of Step Aside, dear ex: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Thora’s POVI didn’t wait.The second the sun came up, I drove straight to Luke’s office. No makeup. No plan. Just rage buzzing under my skin as swarms of hornets I could not silence. I was driving with white-knuckles on the wheel all the way and I nearly pulled over several times to breath but I was driven by the movement of anger in me. His structure surged out of the morning fog, all glass and steel that reflected my light and shot it back at me. I despised the cleanliness of it, a world without secrets. His secretary attempted to come to my help, at which words were already floating to her lips, but the eye of my face checked her. This stared me through the glass wall behind her—crazed and fierce and wild, and with untamed hair that had been tossed around through the night because I was not asleep. I was just as raw and as dangerous as I looked.Without knocking, I banged his door open.Luke was there. Seated in his chair with shirt sleeves up, a loose tie as we had never though

Thora’s POVI’d had enough.The night before there was no sleep. I threw, whipped, swarmed around the living room till the sun started poking holes into the blinds. As soon as the sky lightened I got dressed in the first piece of clothing I could find and went to the office of my lawyer.I had sat across from her in a disheveled state, with all my hair messed up, and no make-up on my face, and my coffee cold between my fingers. I didn’t care. “File it,” I said. Her pen wavered above her yellow legal pad. “File what?” “Full custody. Emergency order. Whatever it takes. I would rather Quentin were out of the life of Avis. Her brows pulled together. “Thora, that’s—” I am no longer waiting him to make the next move. I broke, but I made myself stronger. “I can’t live like this anymore. I cannot be leaping each time the phone rings. He gave away the picture of our daughter, her name, her life to the vultures.Enough.” She sat back in her chair and examined me. She was looking with that lawyer

Quentin’s POVThe guard slid the morning paper under my cell door, the same way he always did, like I was some old man waiting for the comics section. Most days, I ignored it. The news was noise. But today, I picked it up.And there she was.Front page.Thora Greenwood. My Thora.Her hair was drawn back, her chin was thrown up, as though she believed that she could do more than the world. She was also clutching a pile of papers in her bosom and fierce in front of the cameras. There was a screaming headline on the page:“Greenwood vs. Palmer: Custody War Brewing.”I laughed. Low. Dark. It echoed off the concrete walls. She really thought she could win.Sweet, foolish Thora.She never understood the game. She still didn’t.I folded the paper neatly and put it on the corner of my cot. Order mattered to me. Even here. The guards thought prison stripped a man of his power. They were wrong.Prison was only an inconvenience. A pause button.The world outside hadn’t stopped when these bars cl

Luke’s POV Courtrooms were theaters. I had read long before, of my father burying opponents in law suits, which were not concerned with facts, but with performance. The scene, the limelight, the tale you meant. Quentin had never been inferior about it. And to-day, as I saw him taken back in his chair, smiling as though a vacation in prison, I despised him more than ever before I hated him. But what I disliked still more was that I should see Thora opposite him, cowering under the brunt of his gaze. She had sneaked in with her head held high, in black, her hair tied back in a bun, and like armor. But armor cracked. I had noticed that she had panicked as the lawyer of Quentin had displayed those photos. I had seen her knuckles turn white where the pen was. Quentin said the word mine at her. I almost stood up right then. Nearly straddled the aisle, caught him by the throat, and told him that she had never been and never would be his. And that would have won him the match. And Th

Quentin’s POVThe prison library wasn’t much—dusty shelves, broken chairs, a guard who barely stayed awake. But it had one thing I needed: quiet.I sat at the back table, a stack of newspapers and glossy magazines spread before me. Every one of them had her face on the cover.Thora Greenwood.Sometimes she looked fierce, chin lifted. Sometimes she looked broken, eyes glassy. But always, always, she looked like mine.She thought she was hurting me with those papers she filed. She thought she was striking a blow. But all she’d really done was hand me the spotlight. And I knew exactly how to use it.My lawyer’s visits were short, but efficient. He came today with a manila folder so thick it barely fit under his arm.He slid it across the table. “We’ve gathered testimonies. Former coworkers, acquaintances. People willing to speak.”I flipped it open. Statement after statement. Some half-truths. Some outright lies. All painted the same picture: Thora as unstable, reckless, negligent.I smil