Chapter 6 - The Long Walk HomeThe leather seat of my Audi was already warm by the time I pulled out of the gravel driveway. I cranked the heater, letting the dry, hot air blast against my damp clothes and shivering skin. The rearview mirror offered one last, glorious glimpse of the chaos I was leaving behind.
Jason was screaming at Marcus. Linda was clutching her pearls—literally—while the tow truck driver ruthlessly chained up the F-250s that Jason had so proudly paraded around in all weekend.
My phone vibrated in the cup holder. The screen lit up with a rapid-fire succession of texts.
Megan, this isn’t funny anymore. Turn around.
You are destroying my mother. She’s having palpitations.
Call me right now or I swear to God...
I smiled, reached over, and blocked his number. Then, I blocked Linda’s. And his cousins’. For the first time in nine years, the digital tether to that toxic family was severed.
“You okay, boss?” The voice came through the car’s Bluetooth. It was Marcus. He had evidently stepped away from the screaming match to call me.
“I’m thawing out,” I said, my voice steadying. “How did they take the departure?”
I could hear the smirk in Marcus’s voice. “About as well as you’d expect. Jason tried to physically block the tow truck. I had to remind him that assaulting a licensed contractor while on camera would violate his probation from that bar fight last year. That shut him up.”
“Good. Where are they now?”
“Waiting for a ride. Apparently, Uber doesn't have a lot of drivers hanging around remote lake houses at ten o'clock on a Sunday night. The earliest one is forty-five minutes out, and it’s going to cost him three hundred bucks.”
“Let’s hope his personal credit card still works,” I mused.
“About that,” Marcus paused. “I just pushed the paperwork through with the banking division. As majority shareholder and CFO of Parker Landscaping Holdings, you’ve officially frozen all executive corporate accounts. His platinum card is effectively a piece of plastic.”
“Perfect. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow at 8:00 AM, Marcus. Dress for a bloodbath.”
I disconnected the call and drove into the city. I didn't go back to the sprawling suburban colonial house Jason and I had shared. That house was technically in his name—one of the few things he brought into the marriage. Instead, I pulled into the underground parking garage of a luxury high-rise downtown.
Two months ago, when I first discovered the discrepancies in the company accounts—and realized Jason was actively trying to force me out of the business I had secretly bankrolled—I quietly purchased a penthouse under an anonymous LLC.
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I took the private elevator up, stripped off my chlorine-soaked clothes, and stepped into a scalding hot shower. The freezing water of the lake house pool felt like a distant nightmare. As I washed my hair, I didn't cry. I had done all my crying years ago, begging a narcissist to love me, begging his mother to respect me.
Tomorrow, they were going to learn that the quiet, submissive wife they threw into a pool for a laugh was actually the apex predator of their entire financial ecosystem.
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