Po 14 latach i dwójce dzieci moja żona zażądała domu, samochodu i firmy, więc oddałem jej wszystko

“Proof,” I said. “That Nora and Vance have been stealing from me for years.”

Boyd opened it.

He isn’t the type who shows emotion easily. Running into burning buildings trains you to keep your face calm.

But as he turned pages, I watched his jaw tighten. His knuckles went white around the paper.

“Holy—” he muttered, then swallowed the word and kept reading. “How much?”

“About four hundred,” I said. “Give or take.”

Boyd looked up slowly. “And Nora’s name is on this?”

“Half of it,” I said. “Vance handled the rest.”

Boyd closed the folder and stared at me.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I’m going to let her take the company,” I said.

He stared like I’d lost my mind.

“You’re going to what?”

“Think about it,” I said. “If I fight her, she digs in. She hides things. She drags this out for years.”

“But if I give it to her,” I said, keeping my voice even, “she takes everything. Ownership. Control. Responsibility.”

Boyd’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re going to let her take the blame for her own mess,” he said.

“Exactly.”

He leaned back and exhaled.

“That’s either brilliant,” he said, “or you’ve finally snapped.”

“I need help,” I told him. “I need someone who can document this properly. Someone who can put it together in a way that holds up.”

Boyd nodded once, slow.

“I know a guy,” he said. “Works with investigations through the fire marshal’s office. He knows people who handle financial crimes. I’ll make calls.”

Three days later, I sat across from a forensic accountant named Dale Richter.

Quiet man. Reading glasses. Yellow legal pads stacked like bricks. The kind of person who looks harmless until you realize he can rebuild a timeline from scraps of data and destroy your entire lie with a spreadsheet.

I handed him everything.

He spent two weeks tracing it all—every fake vendor, every transfer, every pattern that told the real story under the surface.

When he called me back, his voice was calm.

“Mr. Sutler,” he said, “this is systematic embezzlement. Coordinated. Ongoing. It’s not a mistake. It’s a plan.”

“What are my options?” I asked.

“You can pursue civil action,” he said, “but given the scope, I’d go to federal authorities. They handle cases like this. And they move quietly until they’re ready.”

“And if Nora takes ownership of the company before they move?” I asked.

Dale’s mouth lifted into the smallest smile.

“Then the liability becomes hers,” he said. “On paper, she becomes responsible for what happened under that company’s name.”

I walked out of his office feeling something I hadn’t felt in months.

Hope.

The next few weeks were brutal.

I had to pretend to be broken.

I had to sit across from Nora in mediation while she played the part of the wounded wife. I had to watch her smirk when her lawyer listed demand after demand like it was a shopping list.

Hugh was losing his mind.

“Donnie,” he said, voice tight, “I’m begging you. Let me fight this. We can contest every piece of it.”

“No,” I said. “We accept her terms.”

“The house?” he asked.

“Give it to her.”

“The vehicles?”

“Give them to her.”

“The business your father built,” he said, like the words hurt to say.

“All of it,” I said. “Every last piece.”

Hugh slammed his pen down.

“I’ve been practicing law for thirty years,” he snapped. “I have never seen a man so determined to ruin himself.”

“I’m not ruining myself,” I said. “I’m setting a trap.”

He stared at me for a long beat, then lowered his voice.

“What do you know that I don’t?” he asked.

“Nothing you need to worry about yet,” I said. “Just trust me.”

My mother was harder.

She came to my apartment one night with a casserole dish and tears in her eyes, like she was feeding a man who’d lost the will to live.

“Donovan,” she whispered, “please. That company is all we have left of your father.”

I took her hands in mine.

“Mom,” I said, “do you trust me?”

She nodded through tears. “Of course.”