Chapter 6 - The Custody Filing
By Thursday afternoon, the rain had turned into a heavy, freezing mist that coated the city in a layer of gray slush.
Nora sat at the corner table of a small Italian cafe on Bleecker Street, nursing a cup of black coffee while the hum of a small space heater warmed her ankles. Across from her sat David Miller—no relation, but the sharpest family law attorney in lower Manhattan who didn't charge retainer fees for women running away from men with private security details.
David closed a thick manila folder and slid it across the checkered tablecloth.
“He hasn't contested the financial freeze yet,” David said, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses. “Your personal account is secure, and the copyright injunction on the Silhouette design went through this morning. Moretti Group has already pulled their ads from the billboards in Times Square.”
Nora stared out the steamy window at the passing yellow cabs. “What about Eli?”
“That’s the complicated part,” David sighed, pulling a smaller document from the back of the file. “Because you left the family residence without a formal temporary custody agreement filed beforehand, Dominic's lawyers could technically argue abandonment. However—”
“However what?”
“However, with the police report from the hotel lobby, the medical record of the contusion on your cheek from the hospital where you got checked out at 3:00 a.m., and the financial audit Marco leaked to my office showing Julian Vance using company funds to finance the gala... a judge in family court would grant you emergency temporary custody within twenty minutes.”
Nora’s fingers tightened around her coffee mug. “I don't want a bloodbath, David. I just want my son out of that house before Dominic realizes that throwing money at the problem isn't going to bring me back.”
“He already knows, Nora,” David said quietly, pointing a pen toward the street outside.
Nora turned her head.
Parked illegally across the narrow cobblestone street, hazard lights blinking through the freezing mist, was the black Maybach.
The tinted rear window rolled down two inches.
Dominic didn't get out. He didn't send Marco. Through the narrow gap in the glass, Nora could see the pale outline of his face, staring directly through the cafe window at her table.
He looked older than forty-two. The arrogance that had defined his posture for a decade seemed to have collapsed under the weight of three days of total, unmitigated ruin.
Nora didn't look away. She picked up her cup, took a slow sip of coffee, and met his gaze through the glass.
She didn't wave. She didn't flinch.
May you like
She simply reached into her coat pocket, pulled out her phone—the new one with the unlisted number—and tapped the screen to send a single text message to David's legal assistant:
File the emergency custody papers. Now.
