Chapter 8 - THE VIDEOMy mother died nine years before Leo was born.
Her name was Elizabeth Brooks.
She was fifty-three.
Cancer took fourteen months to reduce one of the strongest women I had ever known to a hospital bed in our Alexandria home.
The final night, I sat beside her for six hours.
Dad was there.
A hospice nurse was there.
I cried.
I prayed.
I held my mother’s hand when she stopped breathing.
Nothing about that night had anything to do with Dominic.
I hadn’t even met him yet.
So why did his company have a video file carrying my name and that date?
The answer came the following morning.
Margaret’s digital-forensics consultant examined the copied directory Sabrina had preserved.
The file label was misleading.
It wasn’t a recording from the night Mom died.
It was a folder related to the trust created around that date.
Inside were scanned estate documents.
Including older examples of my signature.
Dominic had obtained them from papers I kept in our home safe.
My mother’s death certificate.
Trust acknowledgments.
Beneficiary forms.
Everything he would need to study how my signature changed over time.
I felt violated in a way that was difficult to explain.
Stealing money was one thing.
Stealing pieces of my mother’s final arrangements to build better forgeries was something else.
The forensic consultant found something worse.
An image-processing file.
Layers.
Adjustments.
Signature samples.
Someone had been practicing.
Margaret closed the laptop.
“That may become extremely significant.”
I looked at Dad.
His face had gone pale.
Not angry.
Hurt.
Those documents belonged to him too.
Mom’s final decisions.
Her attempt to protect me after she was gone.
Dominic had turned them into tools.
Dad walked to the window.
“I introduced him to the trust attorney,” he said quietly.
“That doesn’t make this your responsibility.”
“I told your mother I would protect you.”
“Dad.”
He turned.
“You were thirty when you married him. You had every right to make your own decisions.”
“I did.”
“And now you have every right to make another one.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Marriage had been my decision.
Leaving could be too.
Dominic’s attorney requested settlement discussions that afternoon.
The timing was not accidental.
They knew something was changing.
But they didn’t know how much we had.
Margaret accepted a preliminary meeting.
“No agreements,” she warned me. “We listen.”
The meeting happened two days later.
Dominic arrived without Victoria.
He looked terrible.
Unshaven.
Eyes red.
His expensive suit hung loosely.
For one reckless second, compassion returned.
Six years did not vanish simply because the truth became ugly.
I remembered the man who danced with me in our kitchen.
The man who proposed during a snowstorm.
The man who cried when the pregnancy test turned positive.
Then I remembered the email.
She’ll be medically limited, emotional, and dependent.
Compassion did not require surrender.
We sat across from each other.
His attorney began.
“My client would like to resolve the marital issues privately.”
Margaret said, “What does privately mean?”
“No media statements.”
“We have made none.”
“No involvement from General Brooks.”
Dad wasn’t even present.
Margaret replied, “General Brooks has not participated in the litigation except as Audrey’s father.”
Lang continued.
“Dominic is prepared to withdraw his request for primary custody.”
I stared at him.
Just days earlier, he claimed Leo was unsafe with me.
Now he was offering to abandon that claim.
“In exchange for what?” Margaret asked.
There it was.
Lang slid a proposal across the table.
Dominic wanted confidentiality.
Mutual releases.
A division of property.
And a statement that financial transfers had been “jointly authorized during the marriage.”
I looked at Margaret.
She didn’t react.
I understood anyway.
He wanted me to legitimize the signatures.
“No.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“Audrey, read it.”
“I did.”
“You’d keep the apartment.”
“It’s partly mine already.”
“You’d keep the trust.”
“You cannot take the trust.”
“I’m trying to be reasonable.”
“You’re trying to make me certify documents I didn’t sign.”
His attorney interrupted.
“No one is asking you to certify forgery.”
I looked at him.
“Then remove that clause.”
Silence.
Dominic’s voice softened.
“Audrey, please.”
I hated that word in his mouth.
“What?”
“If this goes further, Hale Meridian could collapse.”
“That’s not my company.”
“Thousands of people depend on it.”
“So you forged my signature to save their jobs?”
He looked down.
“Partly.”
“And the Florida house?”
His head snapped up.
There it was.
He hadn’t known I knew.
“What Florida house?”
I stared.
“You’re still doing it.”
“What?”
“Lying after the lie has stopped working.”
He leaned back.
His attorney whispered something.
Dominic ignored him.
“You’ve been talking to Sabrina.”
I said nothing.
His face darkened.
“She’s unstable.”
I almost laughed.
Of course.
Every woman who challenged Dominic eventually became unstable.
His wife.
His employee.
Probably his own mother one day if she ever disagreed with him.
“She stole company records,” he said.
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“Then deal with that legally.”
“She’s trying to destroy me.”
“No, Dominic. You keep saying other people are doing things to you.”
I leaned forward carefully.
“Dad embarrassed you. I froze your money. Sabrina destroyed your company. The hospital made you look bad. The judge misunderstood you.”
His expression tightened.
“But every single event started with something you chose.”
He stared at me.
I continued.
“You chose to lie.”
“You chose to forge.”
“You chose to leave us outside that hospital.”
His voice dropped.
“That stupid bus story is ruining my life.”
I felt something inside me finally break free.
Not my heart.
My attachment to the version of him I had loved.
“A bus story?”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“It was my life.”
He looked confused.
“For you, it was fifteen minutes outside a hospital. For me, it was the moment I understood exactly what I meant to you.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“No.”
I stood slowly.
“That’s why you still don’t understand.”
Margaret began gathering her documents.
Meeting over.
Dominic panicked.
“Wait.”
I looked at him.
He lowered his voice.
“There’s something you need to know about Sabrina.”
“What?”
“She’s protecting someone.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
“Mom.”
That surprised me.
“Victoria?”
“She knew about some transfers.”
“Some?”
“Most.”
“Were they her idea?”
Dominic looked toward his attorney.
Lang looked horrified.
“Do not answer that.”
Too late.
Dominic had told me enough.
He was beginning to separate himself from his mother.
The alliance was cracking.
That evening, Victoria called me six times.
I didn’t answer.
On the seventh, she left a voicemail.
“Audrey, Dominic is lying. Do not believe anything he says about me.”
Then another.
“I only moved money because he told me to.”
Then another.
“There are documents you haven’t seen.”
By midnight, mother and son were apparently preparing to blame each other.
Margaret smiled when I told her.
“Pressure clarifies loyalty.”
Three days later, the corporate board placed Dominic on administrative leave.
An independent investigation began.
Not because of my father.
Not because of press coverage.
Because Hale Meridian’s outside auditors received evidence indicating potentially unauthorized transactions.
Sabrina had retained her own counsel.
She agreed to cooperate.
Victoria hired a criminal-defense attorney.
Dominic stopped sending me flowers.
Then came the second custody hearing.
This time, Dominic did not ask for primary custody.
He asked for expanded unsupervised time.
I did not oppose him having a relationship with Leo.
But Margaret requested conditions while financial and document-fraud allegations remained unresolved.
The judge agreed to a graduated parenting plan.
Afterward, Dominic cornered me in the courthouse hallway.
“Are you happy?”
“No.”
“You’ve taken everything.”
“I haven’t taken anything from you.”
“My company.”
“I didn’t falsify its records.”
“My mother is facing investigation.”
“I didn’t move her money.”
“My reputation.”
I looked at him.
“You left your wife and newborn outside a hospital with twelve dollars.”
He flinched.
“You made that choice before anyone knew my father had four stars.”
He had no answer.
I turned away.
Then he said quietly:
“I did love you.”
I stopped.
The hallway seemed suddenly empty.
I didn’t turn around.
“Maybe.”
His voice broke.
“I did.”
I finally looked back.
“Then you should ask yourself why loving me wasn’t enough to make you treat me like a person.”
He looked down.
I walked away.
May you like
For the first time since the hospital, I didn’t feel like I was escaping him.
I felt like I was leaving him behind.
