5. Emzee
EMZEECHAPTER 5
I knew Ford wouldn’t skip a day of work just because we were fighting, and by the time Munchkin and I Ubered home, my husband was long gone.
Perfect.
It was time to put on my battle armor.
Since last night, I’d been avoiding his calls and texts.
He wanted to talk, to explain, but I didn’t need his explanations.
Nothing could excuse the fact that he’d been lying to me for so long.
That the high school hell I’d suffered through at the academy was all because of him .
God, it was humiliating.
He’d strung me along for seven years, letting me moon over him and put him on a pedestal as my hero and savior, as if keeping his dirty secret wasn’t bad enough already.
Flipping through the dresses in my closet—well, technically my side of Ford’s closet—all I kept thinking was that I’d been a fool to trust him.
How could I have been so stupid?
Ford had been taking advantage of me since day one, up until we were legally married.
And now I was pregnant.
I didn’t think things could get any worse.
Holding up a black dress, I looked in the mirror and sighed.
Too funereal. I needed something powerful and aggressive, something that would pump up my confidence.
An outfit that would remind Mr. and Mrs. Malone, senior, that I was a force to be reckoned with.
And also that they had more to gain by paying me off than by letting Ford steamroll over them.
This whole situation was a fucking mess.
One thing was certain, though.
After this was all over, I didn’t want to speak to him.
I didn’t want to see him.
I didn’t want anything to do with him or the rest of his family, not ever again.
Unfortunately, before I could wash my hands of the Malones for good, I had to meet with the dreaded in-laws.
As long as I kept the news of my pregnancy to myself, I still had leverage.
And despite the poor terms we’d left on before the fundraiser (when Ford had burst into their library to “save” me from their threats), I knew they’d welcome me coming back around to their side of things.
Especially considering the fact that the deal I’d made with them included me staying married to Ford for a year.
They’d be more than overjoyed to hear that I was interested in exiting the marriage earlier.
Way, way earlier.
There was no possibility that they’d question my motives, either.
I’d be playing directly into every assumption the elder Malones had ever had about me.
To them, I was nothing but nouveau riche trash.
And with the Zoric patriarch in jail and our family business in financial jeopardy, why wouldn’t I be anything but thrilled to trade in my marriage to Ford for a mountain of cold hard cash?
Not that I’d be getting any of it.
The Bratva were the only ones who’d be profiting off of this deal.
Ah. This was the one.
I pulled out a dress I’d never actually worn out in public and held it up to me, nodding as I checked myself out in the full-length mirror.
It was a simple sheath dress, but it hugged my body like a glove.
The color was a bright lipstick red.
Harlot red, I knew Mother Malone would think to herself.
Well, let her. Let her see that I didn’t give a damn what she thought of me.
This was war.
I slipped the dress off the hanger and threw it over my shoulder, then headed back to the bathroom to finish my makeup.
My in-laws were already in the library when I was shown into the house by Vivi, the Malones’ longtime housekeeper.
Of course it had to be the library.
I hated that library.
“Mara,” Mrs. Malone said coldly as Vivi ushered me into the room.
“Hello, Mrs. Malone. Mr. Malone. So good to see you again,” I lied.
I forced myself to smile, as if I didn’t have a care in the world.
“You said you wanted to speak to us,” Ford’s mother said.
“Well?”
She was sitting in a burgundy leather wingback chair, a villain’s prime choice of seating if I’d ever seen one.
Mr. Malone was behind his desk, pointedly ignoring both me and his wife as he hid behind the Wall Street Journal .
He could be completely charming, I knew from experience—but he was also a total pushover whenever his wife was in the same room.
It was like he couldn’t stand being around her either, and always chose the path of least resistance.
I almost felt sorry for him, but not quite.
Clearing my throat, I lifted my chin and said, “I wanted to discuss our arrangement.”
“Did you now?” Mrs. Malone said.
I saw the way she was taking in my appearance, and the curl of her lip as she did so.
I couldn’t help feeling a petty twinge of satisfaction at her obvious disgust. I wanted to strike a pose.
To really make her uncomfortable.
“We’re all ears,” Ford’s dad said.
“Though to be honest, this hardly comes as a surprise.”
Ah.
So they assumed I had come over to formally back out of our deal, or at the very least request an extension on the marriage term.
After Ford had declared his love for me right in this very library, insisting he wouldn’t give me up, and that he’d fight for me, of course it made sense that his parents were expecting me to renege.
Were they in for a shock.
Mr. Malone had actually set his paper down, and was looking at me with an interested expression, which I took as a good sign.
It meant I had the floor.
The power. I was going to say what I had come to say and they were going to listen.
With a deep breath, I straightened my shoulders and faced the two of them straight on.
“I want out,” I said.
“Out of our deal?” Mrs. Malone asked, her voice like acid.
“I’m afraid that won’t be?—”
“No,” I interrupted.
“Out of the marriage. The sooner the better.”
Mrs. Malone’s jaw actually dropped.
Behind the desk, Mr. Malone’s brows lifted.
“ What? ” Mrs. Malone sputtered.
“I don’t think we need to keep up this charade for much longer,” I said.
“You want me and Ford divorced, and I want my family’s debt paid.” I paused, mustering up the one shred of truth that would give my words the most credence.
“The Bratva’s been leaning on my brother.”
“Ah. I see,” Mr. Malone said.
He actually sounded sympathetic.
“Nothing is more important to me than my family’s security. Including Ford,” I added.
“I’m sure you understand.”
Ford was getting thrown under the bus, but I knew it was necessary.
I also knew that the Malones would do whatever it took to get those divorce papers filed as soon as possible.
“And here we thought you were going to try to renegotiate, seeing how you managed to trick our son into actually falling for you,” Mrs. Malone said.
Her words sliced into me like a knife to my heart.
Because I too had thought that Ford was falling for me.
After the way he’d defended me to his parents—standing up to them in a way that had surprised me and them—I had believed that our relationship, our marriage, could finally grow into something real.
Something based on mutual love and respect.
But now I knew that it just wasn’t possible.
Not after what I’d learned about him.
About who Ford really was.
He was just like his parents.
Manipulative and self-serving and cruel.
The sooner I could purge him from my life, the better off I’d be.
The better off my baby would be as well.
“Give me a little credit,” I said, surprised at how easily the lies were coming to me.
“I intend to honor our deal. Ford’s feelings were never part of that.”
Lies.
Lies. Lies.
I could see that Mrs. Malone didn’t fully believe me, but I didn’t care.
She didn’t have to trust my motivations, she just had to trust that we were on the same page when it came to Ford, which, right now, we were.
“Before we move forward with this, though, I need a guarantee that my troubles—my family’s troubles—will be over permanently. If I’m going to break my best friend’s heart, I need to know the Bratva won’t come back. Because if they do, there’s no point to any of this.”
I looked back and forth between them expectantly.
I could tell they hadn’t expected me to approach this with such confidence.
They had obviously assumed they had the upper hand, and could walk all over me.
I felt a rush of adrenaline knowing I was the one in control for once.
The wheels in Mrs. Malone’s head were turning.
She wanted me out just as much as I wanted myself out.
And she didn’t want me coming back and causing problems. She wanted me as far away from her precious little Ford as possible.
If she wanted that, she was going to have to pay for it.
“We’ll take care of everything,” she said after a moment.
“You just take care of filling out the paperwork.”
She glanced at her husband, and he nodded.
“Our lawyers, of course, will go over all of it before you file,” he said.
“Perfect,” I said.
I didn’t care about lawyers, I didn’t care about paperwork.
I just wanted out.
“And once everything is squared away, that will be it for the two of you,” Mrs. Malone said.
“For good. No reconciling in the future, or there will be consequences.”
I didn’t like her tone or her threats, but she didn’t have anything to worry about.
“We’re done. Forever,” I said, even though my chest ached just thinking about it.
I was saying it more for myself than for them, but I could tell I had been convincing.
Ford’s mom was flashing me a smug, self-satisfied smile that turned my stomach.
“Good,” she said. “This will be a clean break.”
“It will,” I agreed.
“As long as you uphold your end of the bargain.”
Eschewing the formality of a proper goodbye, I turned my back on them and walked out of the library.
As I crossed the threshold, I felt something inside of me break.
This was the kind of moment that both my own parents and Ford’s must have once had themselves.
The moment where money won out over love.
Over decency. Over the lives they’d dreamed of having.
The moment they’d left a piece of their soul on the bargaining table.
I could only pray the rest remained intact.
My baby deserved a better parent than the ones Ford and I had gotten.
Vivi tried to talk me into letting the Malones’ driver take me home, but I refused.
Instead I got an Uber back to Ford’s place, and once I was through the door, I fell to my knees and let the tears fall.
It was agony, knowing I was turning my back on Ford forever.
Turning my back on a love I had believed was real and genuine.
A love I’d tended like a sacred garden for seven years.
But I was also turning my back on the kind of manipulation that my father had used on me and my brothers, the kind that the Malones used on Ford, and were trying to use on me.
I was done being a pawn, a plaything.
Starting from this day forward, I’d take back my power.
I hoped.
Munchkin needing his walk is what finally forced me to pull myself together.
As we circled the block, I told myself I’d done what was necessary.
Not just for myself and for my family’s business, but for my baby as well.
It was better for this little innocent growing inside of me to be raised away from the kind of people the Malones were.
My own father was in prison and would never know his grandchild, and I was glad for that.
The only people I needed were my brothers and my sisters-in-law.
My family. We were enough.
Even knowing that it was all for the best, though, I still hurt.
My heart still ached.
And yet there was comfort in knowing that I was going to make sure I was exactly the kind of parent my child deserved.
I would do anything— anything —to protect this precious spark now growing inside of me.
If that meant I had to break my own heart in the process, then so be it.