Chapter 4 – Cora #2
He reaches into a drawer and takes out a stack of papers held together with a big black binder clip and fringed with a rainbow of sticky tabs and sticky notes. The cover says PREMARITAL AGREEMENT MADE AND ENTERED INTO BY AND BETWEEN Cora Anne Jenkins and Adrian Lykaios Maddox.
Lykaios is his mother’s maiden name. I’ve never met her.
She left her family and lives in some kind of commune in Europe now.
Adrian doesn’t talk to her or about her.
The story I gathered from Kendra was that their father was a serial cheater, and at some point, she had enough and bailed on all of them.
Was Delaney a setup? Is Adrian trying to get me to bail on my kids, so he can replace me with a better wife who doesn’t need coaching on forks and spoons? It’s not going to work. I’d never abandon my kids. If I died, I’d haunt them. I’d be a ghost mother.
Drake sighs and runs a thumb through his sticky tabs. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you sent me a surrogacy contract, not a prenup. Can I ask who represented you on this?”
“Brian McDonough. From Winthrop, Winthrop, and Blount.”
“McDonough from Winthrop, eh?” Drake tugs his laptop over and types what I presume is a quick internet search. “Hmmm. Yale. Duke Law. Summer associate at Nicolet and Burgess. That’s the firm that represents your husband’s family, right? Nicolet and Burgess?”
I nod again. The knot in my stomach coils tighter.
Drake shakes his head. “Let me guess. Your husband connected you with McDonough. The only thing you had to do was show up and sign.”
“Y-Yes.” I didn’t know any lawyers, let alone have the money to pay one. Adrian said not to worry. He’d take care of it.
“And this McDonough? He counseled you that it was a fair deal?”
“He said I could negotiate, but at the end of the day, I had to consider what leverage I really had. He said if I pushed back, Adrian might think I was just about the money. He said I needed to think about that.”
Drake scans his laptop screen and snorts.
“And I see that now McDonough is with Nicolet and Burgess.” He sighs, leans back in his chair, and crosses his leg, propping an ankle on his knee.
His pants rise, flashing navy socks with whimsical owls on them.
They make him seem less intimidating. I’m sure that’s the point.
“If we weren’t talking about Winthrop, Winthrop, and Blount, and if your husband wasn’t Adrian Maddox, I’d say we go after Brian McDonough for malfeasance of counsel, but they’ll have crossed their T’s and dotted their I’s.
” I’m not quite following, but I don’t want Drake Chambers to know how lost I am, either, so I keep nodding.
“Invalidating an agreement is always the hardest outcome to achieve, though, and we’ve got a lot of lines to pursue before we go for a Hail Mary.” He pauses.
I nod yet again.
His blue eyes narrow on my face. “You know, what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Let me back up a few steps. I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s not every day a guy from South Jersey has a Maddox stroll into his office. Forgive me?” He flashes his white Ken doll teeth.
“Of course.”
“What I’m saying is that Brian McDonough did not look out for your best interests with this agreement, my guess would be as a quid pro quo with your husband’s law firm.
That’s illegal. It’s called malfeasance of counsel, and if push comes to shove, we might need to prove that to get the whole thing thrown out, but that’s really hard to do, so we’re going to try some other things first. Okay? ”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. I don’t want to ask the next question, but I can’t go on having this conversation with him not knowing that I’m totally clueless. “It’s just—can you tell me what’s in it? I didn’t exactly—I didn’t understand it.”
I’m staring at his scorpion, so I don’t see his expression, I just hear the pregnant pause before he answers.
His voice is excruciatingly kind. “Well, to be honest, it reads more like a surrogacy contract than a prenup. Usually, with men like your husband, the focus of agreements like these are on assets, and there’s plenty about finances here, but the more unusual provisions relate to your children. ”
The knot in my stomach rises to lodge in my throat. “What about my kids?”
“Well, as you know, there are the cash bonuses for the children. Fifty million for the first born. Twenty million for each live birth thereafter. Fifty million for the first male if the first born is female.”
My eyes bug. I had to sign a stack of papers after both births. Was I getting paid? If so, where is the money? “So there are trust funds for the kids?”
“Yes, in addition to the cash bonuses.”
In addition to?
“And then there are the scaled payouts for each year you stay with the family, doubling each year, exponentially, and maxing out when the youngest child turns eighteen.”
“I get paid to stay with Adrian?”
“To stay with the family, yes.” Drake is really frowning now. “Cora, you do know that you signed away custody of your children in case of separation or divorce, don’t you?”
My heart drops like a stone. “No. I’d never do that.”
Drake flips through the papers to a red tag, flips the document, and slides it in front of me. A passage is highlighted in yellow.
Ms. Jenkins agrees that in the case of a dissolution of the relationship, either by separation or divorce, Mr. Maddox will retain sole legal and physical custody of all children, including any children in utero at the time of separation.
Any visitation arrangements will be decided solely by Mr. Maddox, to be scheduled at the time and duration of his determination, and conducted under the supervision of Mr. Maddox or his designee.
My hand goes immediately to my stomach. “I didn’t know,” I gasp. “He can’t do this.”
Drake’s eyes darken with what seems like anger on my behalf. “It’s a highly unusual clause and unlikely to stand up in court. But—”
“But?”
“Your husband is a Maddox. I am going to be frank here, and this is between you and me, attorney and client. Between all four brothers, the Maddoxes have a finger in every pie in this city, legal . . . and illegal. I don’t think you’re going to find a judge who will side with Cora Anne Jenkins over any Maddox.
Nicolet and Burgess will drown me in motions and discovery and appeals on interim rulings, and whichever judge we get, he’ll let it happen.
Your kids will be eighteen before we even get our day in court. ”
The air in the office is getting thin. My lungs don’t work. Or are they working too hard? I’m huddled in this seat, but I’m also levitating like the ghost of a cartoon character just crushed by a falling piano. No. I can’t afford to lose it now. I lean forward and grip the edge of the desk.
“What do I do?”
I can’t lose my babies. I won’t. They’re the good thing that made everything in the past worthwhile.
“We will figure it out together, Cora. I promise you. You’re not alone in this anymore.”
I blink at him. He’s reached a hand out on the desk, not to take mine, but as a gesture of comfort. He looks so sincere. His face is so open. So unlike Adrian.
“I have to ask—are you in any danger at home, Cora?”
“No, of course not,” I answer immediately. I have to ask Cara—have you had thoughts of harming yourself or wishing you were dead? Have you had thoughts of wanting to hurt someone else?
I shake my head to clear it, and an even worse thought occurs to me. “What happens if he leaves me?”
Drake’s mouth flattens in a grim line. “In all scenarios, Mr. Maddox retains physical and legal custody of any children.”
Sheer panic begins to claw its way up my throat.
Drake seems to notice because his voice softens.
“But the way this agreement is written, I truly believe that Mr. Maddox’s goal is for the marriage to be successful.
” He seems to rethink his wording. “Or rather, for you to remain with the family until the children reach their majority. I read the annual payout scaling up so significantly over time as perhaps a concession that you may find remaining in the marriage less desirable as the years go by, and he wanted to incentivize you to stay.”
Drake Chambers seems to understand my husband’s mind better than me.
“What do I do?” I ask again.
“For now, while I go through this again with a fine-tooth comb, I recommend that you maintain the status quo if you’re able.”
“The status quo?” Blindly love my husband like a dummy while he uses other women’s pussies to jerk himself off when the mood strikes him?
He grimaces apologetically. “I know you came here hoping for a different outcome, and I’m not saying we have no path forward, just that I need some time to figure out how we’re going to fight this.”
“How much time?” I can’t go back to normal. There is no normal anymore.
“I can’t say, but I want you to know that I’ll be working on this twenty-four-seven from here on out.
If anything changes, even the slightest thing, I need you to call me immediately.
Any time. Day or night.” He takes a card from his drawer, scrawls a number on the back, and slides it across his desk.
“That’s my personal number. I’m serious, Cora. Day or night.”
I take the card with trembling hands. I’m holding on, but barely. I feel like I’m fighting a vacuum, sucking me into space.
Drake pulls the prenup back toward him and frowns. “This really does read like a surrogacy contract. May I ask—did you have any debt that Adrian discharged when you married?”
I shake my head. My credit was nonexistent. I couldn’t get myself into debt.
“And you don’t have any family living?”
“I grew up in foster care. When I aged out, I came to New York.”
“And you were twenty-one when you met your husband?”
I nod.
He blows out a sigh. “I’ll tell you one thing. When we set things straight, Brian McDonough is losing his license to practice law.”