The Ugly Truth
Mark slid the divorce papers across the table to me.
What?
We've been in the red for three years. We're three hundred thousand in debt, he sighed. I've sold the house to cover it. We'll split whatever's left.
I just stared at him.
Eight years. I was with him from a rented apartment startup to a company valued at over a million dollars.
"Last month you told me you landed three huge contracts."
"They fell through."
He offered me a pen. "Just sign it, Leah. It's better for everyone."
I didn't take it. "Mark, when was the company dissolved?"
"Last week."
I glanced at my phone. It was Monday, 3:00 PM. The state business registry showed the dissolution time: today, at 2:00 PM.
An hour ago.
1
I turned my phone screen toward him. "You said last week?"
Marks eyes flickered for a fraction of a second before he regained his composure. "My mistake. I've been swamped lately."
"Busy dissolving the company?"
"Leah, what are you getting at?" He frowned. "I didn't want it to come to this. The business really couldn't hold on any longer."
I didn't say a word. Eight years of marriage had taught me everything I needed to know about him. When he lied, his left hand would instinctively twist the wedding band on his finger.
Right now, his left hand was hidden under the table.
"Where are the debt records?" I asked.
"The accountant has them. I'll have her send them to you."
"Don't bother," I said, standing up. "I'll go get them myself."
"Leah!" He moved to block my way. "What is this? You don't trust me?"
I looked at him, at this face I had known for a decade, loved for eight years. The face of the man who, on one knee, had told me meeting me was the greatest fortune of his life. The man who said we would grow old and gray together.
"We'll see about trust once I've seen the books." I stepped around him and headed for the door.
"The company is dissolved! What's the point of looking at them now?"
I stopped. "You're right." I turned back. "Once it's dissolved, the books are meaningless."
He let out a visible sigh of relief.
"That's why I want to see the records from before it was dissolved."
The color drained from his face. "What records?"
"Those three big contracts you mentioned last month," I said, my gaze locked on his. "The agreements, the payment records, the project timelines."
"They all fell through! There's nothing to see."
"Even failed projects leave a paper trail."
"Leah, what the hell do you want?" he snapped, his voice rising. In all the years I'd known him, he had almost never raised his voice at me. This was a first.
"I want the truth."
He froze for a second, then a bitter laugh escaped his lips. "Fine. You want to see them? You'll see them."
He pulled out his phone and dialed. "Hey, it's Mark. Could you send my wife the contract files from last month? ... Yeah, all of them." He hung up and looked at me, a smug expression on his face. "Happy now?"
I remained silent. Ten minutes later, a file landed in my inbox. Three contracts, totaling over one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. All signed and stamped by the clients. But there was a note attached: Project suspended due to client-side cash flow issues.
I looked up at him. He was leaning back in his chair, wearing an I-told-you-so smirk.
"Convinced?"
"Completely." I slipped my phone into my purse. "I'm just going to use the restroom."
Inside the stall, I silenced my phone and pulled up the state's online business database. I typed in the name of the first client company.
The search result came back instantly. The company was dissolved three years ago.
The second one? Dissolved two years ago.
The third? No record of such a company ever existed.
I leaned against the cool tile of the bathroom wall, taking a deep, shaky breath. Eight years. I thought I was his wife, his partner.
It turns out I was never his wife. Just his piggy bank.
2
When I walked out of the restroom, my expression was a perfect mask of neutrality. Mark was still sitting there.
"All good?"
"All good."
"Then let's get this signed." He pushed the pen toward me again. "The sooner we're done, the better."
I sat down and picked up the agreement. Four pages. I read through them one by one.
The house would be sold by him to cover the debts.
The car was his.
Our savings would be divided based on whose name they were under.
I would get custody of our son, Leo, and he would pay two hundred dollars a month in child support.
"Two hundred dollars?"
"I don't have an income right now," he said with a practiced sigh. "I'll raise it once I'm back on my feet."
"How much do you have in your personal savings?"
"Less than five thousand."
I met his gaze. "We've been married for eight years, and you only have five thousand dollars to your name?"
"Company finances and personal finances are separate, Leah, you know that," he said, his tone perfectly calm. "When the company went under, all the money went to pay off creditors."
I nodded slowly. "What about the house?"
"There's still a hundred and seventy thousand left on the mortgage. After we sell it and pay that off, there won't be enough to cover the rest of the business debt."
"And the car?"
"It's a five-year-old sedan. It's not worth much."
I set the papers down. "So, what you're saying is, after eight years of marriage, I walk away with nothing?"
"It's not that you get nothing, Leah, it's that there is nothing," he said, his eyes pleading. "I hate this as much as you do, but this is our reality now."
I studied his face. He looked so sincere. So wounded. So utterly helpless. If I hadn't known those contracts were fake, I might have actually believed him.
"I need some time to think."
"Think about what?" he frowned. "Is this about not trusting me again?"
"I need to see the complete financial records."
"They're with the accountant! I told you, I can have her send them over."
"Not those," I said, standing and grabbing my purse. "I want to see every single financial transaction from the day the company was founded until the day it was dissolved."
His expression hardened. "Leah, what is the meaning of this?"
"It means nothing," I said, walking toward the door. "I'll sign the papers, but not before every penny is accounted for."
"The books are clean!" he shouted after me.
I paused at the doorway. "Then what are you so afraid of?"
He had no answer.
I walked out of the room, hearing his voice call after me. "Leah, you better think carefully!"
I didn't turn back. "About what?"
"About what kind of outcome you really want."
This time, I turned. His face was no longer a mask of wounded pride. It was cold, hard, and utterly unfamiliar. "The outcome I want," I said, "is the truth."
He laughed, a short, ugly sound. "The truth?"
"Yes. The truth."
"Leah," he said, rising and walking toward me until he stood just inches away. "Some truths are more than you can handle."
I looked him straight in the eye. "You really don't know me at all, do you?"
Then I turned and left.
As soon as the law firm's doors closed behind me, my hands started to shake. It wasn't fear. It was pure, unadulterated rage.
I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. "Chloe? Are you still at the office?"
"Yeah, I am. What's up?"
"I need you to run a check on someone for me."
"Who?"
"Mark."
There was a two-second pause on the other end. "Your Mark?"
"Yes."
"Leah, what's going on?"
I took a deep breath, the city air feeling thin in my lungs. "He dissolved his company an hour before asking me for a divorce."
Chloe was silent.
"I need to know where his money went for the past eight years."
"Okay," Chloe's voice turned sharp and professional. "Send me his social security number."
"And one more thing," I added. "Check for any signs of hidden debts or asset transfers."
"You got it."
After hanging up, I stood on the sidewalk, watching the river of people flow past. Not a single person knew that in an office just above them, my marriage had just died. It was a quiet death.
But I wasn't going to let it be a mysterious one.
3
When I got home, our son Leo was building a tower of blocks in the living room. Mark's mother was watching him from the sofa.
"You're back!" she said, standing up and taking my purse with a warm smile. "Have you eaten?"
"I have."
"Well, have a glass of water. I just made some chamomile tea."
I looked at her. For the past few months, my mother-in-law had been unusually kind. She used to visit once a month, staying for a couple of days at most. But shed been living with us for nearly two months now. She said she wanted to spend more time with her grandson.
It seemed normal then. Now, it felt all wrong.
"Mom, how has Mark's company been doing lately?"
Her hand paused mid-air. She recovered quickly. "Not too well, I don't think. He doesn't tell me much."
"So you didn't know the company was dissolved?"
She blinked. "Dissolved?" Her expression was one of perfect surprise. Her eyes, however, were not.
"It was dissolved today," I said, watching her closely. "He didn't tell you?"
"He he didn't say a word," she sighed. "That boy, he never tells me anything."
I offered a thin smile and said nothing more.
Leo ran over and hugged my leg. "Mommy, why are you home so early?"
"Because Mommy missed you." I scooped him into my arms. A five-year-old boy, so blissfully unaware. He had no idea that his own father was likely orchestrating a grand deception to strip his mother of everything she had.
Mark didn't come home that night. He sent a text: Out with friends tonight, don't wait up.
I didn't reply.
Instead, I opened my laptop and started piecing together the last eight years. My bank statements, my credit card bills, my transfer histories. My salary account had received just over $200,000 in eight years. I'd spent about 0-030,000 on household expenses: groceries, Leo's formula and diapers, preschool tuition, gifts for both our parents. The remaining $70,000 was mostly in my savings account.
Mark never touched the household finances. He always said he was in charge of making money, and I was in charge of spending it. I thought it was a sign of trust. Looking back, it was probably part of a much darker strategy.
I opened the old profit-and-loss statements he'd shown me before.
2021: Profit $350,000.
2022: Profit $250,000.
2023: Profit $220,000.
That was over $800,000 in profit in just three years. Where did it all go?
My phone buzzed. A message from Chloe.
Found a few things. Let's meet tomorrow.
Okay, I replied.
Lying in bed that night, my eyes wide open in the dark, I couldn't sleep. By the time the sun rose, one thing had become terrifyingly clear.
This divorce wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was a carefully planned hunt.
And I was the prey.
4
The next day, I met Chloe at a caf. She pushed a file across the table.
"Start with this."
It was a share transfer agreement. I opened it. The date was from six months ago. Mark had transferred 45% of his company shares to someone named Tina Miller, for the price of one dollar.
"Who is Tina Miller?"
"I checked her out. Her ID lists an address in Florida," Chloe said, watching me. "But she owns a condo here. In the city."
"When did she buy it?"
"Last August."
Last August. We hadn't even been talking about divorce.
"How much was the condo?"
"Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Paid in cash."
I took a sharp breath. Chloe produced another sheet of paper.
"And then there's this."
It was a bank transfer record. Over the past two years, Mark's company account had wired a total of $600,000 to a company called "Apex Trading." The memo for each transfer was "Project Fees."
"Did you look into this company?"
"I did," Chloe said, her expression grim. "The legal representative is a man named George Miller. Tina Miller's father."
I said nothing.
Chloe continued. "Apex Trading is a shell corporation. It has no actual business operations. Most of the money it received was funneled directly into Tina Miller's personal account."
My hand, wrapped around my coffee cup, began to tremble. Six hundred thousand dollars. In two years. Plus the four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar condo.
Over a million dollars.
"There's more," Chloe said, sliding one last document toward me. "This one was harder to get. I had to call in a favor."
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