Chapter 3 - The Flying Monkeys
By the time I woke up the next morning, my shoulder was a canvas of deep purple and black. But the physical pain was secondary to the digital warfare that had erupted overnight.
Dad had given me a burner phone before I went to sleep. I transferred my SIM card over to check my messages. I had over sixty missed calls and a barrage of texts. David had made bail by 3:00 AM, bailed out by his wealthy, image-obsessed mother.
The texts from David were a chaotic pendulum of manipulation: “Sarah, please come home. I was just stressed. You know I love you.” “You’re really going to let your psycho dad ruin our marriage?” “I froze the joint accounts. You have no money. Come home now or you get nothing.”
Worse were the messages from his family and our mutual friends. David had spun a masterful narrative. He claimed I had suffered a mental breakdown, that I had attacked him, and that my “PTSD-crazed” father had kidnapped me. My so-called friends were texting me, begging me to “get psychiatric help” and “stop hurting David.”
I threw the phone onto the couch, feeling a suffocating wave of panic. “He’s turning everyone against me. He locked me out of the bank. I have nothing, Dad.”
Dad walked out from the kitchen, holding a plate of eggs and bacon. He set it down in front of me. “Eat. You need your strength for the lawyer.”
“How am I supposed to pay for a lawyer?” I cried.
Dad pulled out his wallet and tossed a black titanium card onto the table. “I didn't spend twenty years taking combat pay in the Middle East just to let it sit in a savings account. I have more than enough to bury that little punk in legal fees. Eat up. We have a Zoom meeting with Veronica Vance in an hour.”
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Veronica was a former federal prosecutor turned divorce attorney, affectionately known in legal circles as the “Black Widow.” When we logged onto the laptop, she didn't offer fake sympathy. She offered strategy.
“David thinks he can starve you out by freezing the accounts,” Veronica said, her sharp eyes piercing through the screen. “It’s a classic abuser tactic. We are filing an emergency ex parte order for exclusive use of the marital home, temporary spousal support, and a restraining order. As for the embezzlement file your father compiled... we’re sending a copy to the IRS anonymously. Let’s see how smug he is when the federal auditors show up.”
