The Divorce Papers Julian Found
Chapter 03 - The Divorce Papers Julian Found
Dr. Ruiz arrived at the house within the hour, called in personally rather than making Ava drive anywhere in her current state.
She set up her portable monitor on the bed beside Ava, hands quick and practiced, asking a steady stream of gentle questions that had nothing to do with what had actually happened downstairs, questions designed, Ava understood, to keep her calm rather than to gather information she didn't already have from the phone call Victor had made on the drive over.
The exam was quick, careful, and considerably more reassuring than Ava expected. The baby's heartbeat was steady. Her blood pressure was elevated but not dangerously so, not yet.
"You're going to feel this in your body for a few days," Dr. Ruiz said gently, packing away her stethoscope. "Adrenaline like that doesn't just disappear once the danger's gone. Your body needs time to believe it's actually over."
"I want you resting," Dr. Ruiz said, packing up her bag. "No stress, no arguments, no confrontations. Your body's telling me it's had enough for one night."
Ava nodded, though rest felt like a foreign concept with her husband locked in the study down the hall and her father pacing outside her bedroom door like a man holding back a storm.
Once the doctor left, Victor came in and sat at the edge of her bed, something he hadn't done since she was a teenager crying over a broken engagement to someone else entirely, a lifetime ago.
He looked older sitting there than she remembered him looking even that morning, the lines around his eyes deeper, his usually immaculate hair slightly out of place, as though the last few hours had physically aged him in ways a single night shouldn't have been able to manage.
"I need to tell you why tonight happened," he said. "The way it did. Why Julian finally lost control."
Ava sat up slightly against the pillows. "I want to know."
"Three days ago," Victor said, "he found paperwork in your desk. Divorce paperwork. From an attorney named Grace Millbrook."
Ava's stomach dropped. She hadn't told anyone about that appointment. Not her father, not her friends, no one.
She'd been so careful. She'd scheduled it under her maiden initials, paid in cash, told Julian she was meeting an old sorority sister for lunch, and driven forty minutes out of her way to an office where nobody would recognize the Hayes name on her insurance card.
"I only met with her once," she said quietly. "I hadn't decided anything yet."
"He didn't wait to find out what you'd decided," Victor said. "He went through your desk while you were at your prenatal appointment. He found the paperwork, and I believe that's what set tonight in motion."
Ava felt something cold settle over her, the specific horror of understanding her own private, half-formed plan for escape may have been the exact thing that pushed her husband toward violence in the first place.
"This isn't your fault," Victor said, watching her face carefully. "I need you to hear that clearly, before you start blaming yourself for a decision you made trying to protect yourself and this baby."
"How do you know all this," Ava asked. "The desk, the attorney's name, all of it."
Victor's jaw tightened again, the same hesitation from downstairs returning to his face.
"Because Marcus has been watching everything in this house for four months," he said. "Cameras. Financial records. Every account with your name or the baby's future attached to it."
Ava stared at him. "You put cameras in my house?"
"I put cameras in to protect you," Victor said, "the moment I found out what Julian had actually been doing with the company's money."
Ava's chest tightened. "What has he been doing."
Victor reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded printout, sliding it across the blanket toward her.
May you like
"I wasn't going to show you this tonight," he admitted. "Dr. Ruiz would probably have my head for it. But I don't think either of us can afford another day of you not knowing exactly what you're actually dealing with."
She unfolded it with shaking hands, and the numbers on the page made her stomach turn in an entirely new direction.
