—Protected by the prenuptial agreement, except for the joint account and a vacation fund.

She nodded, without emotion.

—So he’s not ruined. He’s just uncomfortable. And that matters a lot in a courtroom.

I almost smiled.

Exactly.

I wasn’t destroying it.

I was simply removing my money, my company, and my life from his reach, after years of watching him and his mother confuse access with ownership.

At noon, Human Resources formalized the dismissal for cause.

The official reason was not personal.

It was professional and documented: disclosure of confidential information to a person outside the company, repeated non-compliance with internal controls and misuse of a corporate card for expenses without commercial justification.

Linda would have called it cruelty.

The board of directors called it something much more accurate: an unforgivable delay.

Ethan managed to intercept me that same afternoon as I was leaving the office.

He looked terrible. He was wearing the same navy suit, his shirt was wrinkled, and there was a dark shadow of stubble on his face. He’d probably slept in his car or at Linda’s apartment after discovering he couldn’t get into the lake house anymore.

“Did you fire me?” he asked, as if the phrase still hadn’t quite sunk in.

—I fired an employee who had become a risk.

He clenched his jaw.

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