From Fake Divorce to Real Fortune Novel – Chapter 9
The winery staff had already dialed 911. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer.
Jack thrashed in the grip of Ben and his friends, spewing incoherent threats and accusations.
“She’s a thief! She took everything! That’s my money she’s living on!”
The police officers arrived, their expressions hardening as they took in the scene — the struggling, disheveled man, the shocked wedding party.
“What’s going on here?” one of them asked, his hand resting on his sidearm.
Ben explained briefly. “This man, Jack Miller, is her ex-husband. He’s been missing for years, declared legally dead. He just showed up and tried to attack her.”
Jack scoffed. “Legally dead? That’s a lie! She cooked that up to steal my inheritance!”
“We have the court order,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady. I’d rehearsed this moment in my mind, in my nightmares, for years. “And he’s not on the guest list.”
As the officers began to question Jack, asking for identification he clearly didn’t have, I signaled to Ms. Albright, my lawyer, who I’d insisted be at the rehearsal, just in case.
She stepped forward, calm and professional.
“Officers, my client, Emily Carter, has been subjected to years of distress due to Mr. Miller’s abandonment. We have extensive documentation.”
This was the moment. I’d hired a private investigator the instant I’d heard those whispers about Jack in Mexico. The PI had been thorough.
“Mr. Miller didn’t just disappear,” I said, my voice clear and carrying over Jack’s renewed protests. “He absconded with $50,000 of our joint savings. He never paid a dime of child support for our daughter, Sophia.”
I produced copies of bank statements showing the withdrawal, the empty promises of wire transfers that never came.
“Furthermore,” I continued, my gaze locking with Jack’s, “he wasn’t lost in the wilderness. He was in Mexico. He remarried a woman named Carmen Rodriguez. They have a child on the way.”
I handed Ms. Albright a file containing copies of a Mexican marriage certificate, photos of Jack with a heavily pregnant Carmen, even statements from disgruntled former associates in a string of failed small businesses he’d tried to start south of the border.
Jack’s face went from red to a pasty white.
“Lies! All lies!” he shrieked, but the fight was draining out of him.
Cornered, exposed, his narrative crumbling, he made one last, desperate move. He twisted violently, breaking free for a split second, and lunged at me again, a guttural roar tearing from his throat.
Ben was faster. He tackled Jack, a clean, efficient takedown that sent them both sprawling onto the manicured lawn.
The officers swarmed, and this time, the handcuffs clicked decisively around Jack’s wrists.
“You’re under arrest for assault,” one officer stated, hauling a now whimpering Jack to his feet. “And we’ll be looking into your immigration status, Mr. Miller. Or whatever your name is.”
The threat of deportation, of being truly erased, finally silenced him.