Chapter 7 - The Divorce
The divorce was finalized six weeks later.
It was the fastest, most uncontested high-net-worth divorce in San Francisco history. Nathan didn’t show up to the hearing. He was too busy in jail, negotiating with prosecutors, trying to trade whatever information he had on his father for a shorter sentence. His lawyer signed the papers for him.
Emily walked out of the courthouse that morning with a single sheet of paper that said she was no longer Emily Carter-Davenport. She was just Emily Carter again. The name her parents had given her. The name that belonged to her.
The press was there, of course. A small army of them, waiting on the steps. They swarmed her the second she walked through the doors, shouting questions.
“Emily! How does it feel to be free?”
“Did you get everything you wanted in the settlement?”
“Any regrets about how you handled things?”
“Will you ever forgive Nathan?”
Emily stopped. She looked at the cameras. She thought about the question. Regrets?
She thought about the photo. About the message. About the five years she’d wasted on a man who’d never deserved her. About the eighteen million dollars stolen from children. About the lies. The gaslighting. The way they’d all looked at her like she was a bug beneath their shoes.
“No,” she said clearly. “No regrets. When people show you who they are, you should believe them. The Davenports showed me exactly who they were a long time ago. I just finally decided to do something about it.”
“Would you do it again?” a reporter asked.
Emily smiled.
“Every single time,” she said.
She got in her car and drove away.
That afternoon, she went back to the house in Pacific Heights for the first time since the dinner. The press had mostly moved on—there were only two cameramen left, sitting in a car across the street, looking bored. The police tape was gone. The front door was still locked. She unlocked it and stepped inside.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. The portrait was gone—the police had taken it as evidence. The binders were gone too. But the damage was still visible. The broken glass from Madison’s drink. The hole Charles had punched in the wall. The scattered papers from when Brooke had fallen into the coffee table. The faint smell of bourbon and regret that seemed to have seeped into the walls.
Emily walked through the rooms. The kitchen where she’d read the message that morning. The home office where she’d compiled the evidence. The master bedroom.
She stopped in the doorway.
The bed was still made. The silk pillow was still there. The wedding portrait was still hanging crooked on the wall, exactly as it had been in the photo. For a second, she could almost see them there—Nathan and Brooke, tangled in her sheets, laughing at her.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t feel sad. She just walked over to the wedding portrait, took it off the wall, and carried it out to the backyard. She put it in the old metal fire pit she’d never used. She poured a little lighter fluid on it. She lit a match.
She watched it burn. The painted canvas curled and blackened. The smiling faces of her and Nathan—young, stupid, in love—melted away into ash. When it was nothing but a pile of cinders, she turned and walked back into the house.
She spent the next three days packing. Not her things—their things. Nathan’s suits. His watches. His stupid bourbon collection. All the furniture they’d picked out together. Everything that reminded her of him. She hired a moving company to take it all to storage. She told them to sell whatever Nathan didn’t claim within thirty days and donate the money to the children’s foundation she was starting—her foundation, the one she’d set up with her own money to replace the one the Davenports had destroyed.
By the end of the week, the house was empty. Just the hardwood floors, the stone counters, the blank walls. It didn’t feel like a home anymore. It felt like a blank canvas.
Emily listed it for sale that weekend. She didn’t need it. It was too big. Too full of bad memories. She had the cottage by the ocean. She had her work. She had her freedom. That was enough.
She was sitting on the empty floor of the living room, drinking a glass of wine, watching the sunset through the big windows, when her phone rang. It was a number she didn’t recognize. She almost didn’t answer. But something made her pick up.
“Emily?” a man’s voice said. “It’s Liam. Liam Carter.”
Emily froze.
The secret son. The heir apparent. The man who was now running what was left of the Davenport empire.
“Liam,” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He hesitated.
“I just wanted to say thank you,” he said.
Emily blinked. That was the last thing she’d expected to hear.
“Thank me?” she said. “For what? For destroying your father’s company? For ruining the family name? For getting your mother dragged into the press?”
“For all of it,” Liam said. He sounded tired. Honest. “My mom spent twenty years living in fear that Charles would find a way to take me away from her. That he’d use his money and his lawyers to erase us. And you? You took him down in one night. With three binders and a portrait. You freed us, Emily. Both of us.”
He paused.
“I know the company is a mess. I know the foundation is gone. I know the name is mud. But I’m going to fix it. I’m going to pay back every single penny that was stolen. Every scholarship. Every school. Every hospital. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making this right. Not for Charles. Not for the Davenport name. For the kids. For my mom. For me.”
Emily was quiet for a long time.
“Why are you telling me this?” she said finally.
“Because I want you to know,” Liam said. “That not all of us are like them. That some of us actually want to do the right thing. And… I have a proposition for you. The company needs a new chief compliance officer. Someone who knows where all the bodies are buried. Someone who can’t be bought. Someone who will make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
He took a breath.
“I want you to take the job, Emily. Name your salary. Name your terms. You can work from the cottage if you want. You never have to step foot in the city if you don’t want to. But I need you. The company needs you. And honestly? The kids need you.”
Emily looked out the window at the sunset. She thought about the last six weeks. About the fire. About the freedom. About the empty house. About the foundation she was starting.
She smiled.
“Send me the contract,” she said. “But I have one condition.”
“Anything,” Liam said.
“Fifty percent of all profits from the company for the next ten years go to the children’s fund. No exceptions. No loopholes. Every penny.”
Liam laughed. It was a warm, genuine sound. Nothing like the cold, cruel laugh of his father or half-brother.
“Done,” he said. “Consider it done.”
He hung up.
Emily finished her wine. She stood up. She walked to the door. She turned off the lights. She locked the house behind her.
May you like
As she walked to her car, she looked up at the sky. The stars were coming out. Somewhere in a jail cell downtown, Nathan and Brooke were sleeping on thin mattresses, facing decades behind bars. Somewhere in a fancy penthouse, Charles was under house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor, waiting for his trial. Somewhere in Portland, Liam’s mom was finally sleeping peacefully, knowing her son was safe.
And Emily Carter? She was just getting started.
