Chapter 7 - Depositions and Dirty Laundry
Two weeks later, the conference room on the twenty-second floor of the Cook County Domestic Relations Courthouse smelled of stale coffee, fresh toner, and pure hostility.
I sat at the long mahogany table, dressed in a sharp navy blazer, my hair pulled back into an elegant knot. Beside me sat Evelyn Reed, her legal pads arranged with military precision. Next to Evelyn sat Diane, whose expression hadn't changed by a millimeter since the night of the promotion party.
Across from us sat Ethan and his court-appointed attorney, a young, exhausted public defender named Greg Barnes. Ethan had tried to retain three separate elite corporate defense attorneys, but without liquid capital and with his assets tied up in court injunctions, no private firm would represent him.
Ethan looked like a shell of the man who had walked through our front door with Vanessa two weeks ago.
His designer suit hung loosely on his shoulders; he had clearly lost ten pounds from stress. His hair was unkempt, his eyes sunken and shadowed by deep purple hollows, and his hands trembled slightly as he clutched a paper cup of lukewarm water. He was currently living in a cheap extended-stay motel near O’Hare Airport, surviving on a weekly court-mandated living stipend of four hundred dollars drawn from our frozen assets.
“Let the record reflect,” Evelyn Reed began, nodding toward the court reporter whose fingers hovered over the stenotype machine, “that we are conducting the preliminary financial deposition in the matter of *Montgomery v. Montgomery*, Case Number 2024-D-88912. Present are the petitioner, Claire Montgomery, her legal counsel, trustee Diane Montgomery, the respondent, Ethan Montgomery, and his counsel.”
Ethan didn't look at Evelyn. His eyes were burning into mine, filled with a toxic mixture of desperation, betrayal, and hatred.
“Claire,” Ethan croaked, leaning forward across the table. “Claire, please. Look at me. We don't have to do this. We can settle this between us. Nine years… we built nine years together. You’re letting my mother tear us apart because she’s bitter about my father!”
“Mr. Montgomery,” Evelyn snapped, her voice cutting through the room like a whip. “You will address your comments exclusively to me or through your counsel. Any direct verbal appeals to my client will be treated as an act of intimidation and reported immediately to Judge Callahan.”
Ethan’s lawyer, Barnes, placed a hand on his arm, whispering urgently. “Ethan, stop. Sit back.”
Ethan slumped into his chair, breathing heavily through his nose.
“Now,” Evelyn said, sliding a thick stack of indexed binders across the table toward Barnes. “Let us review the accounting of dissipated marital funds. Mr. Montgomery, between January of last year and October of this year, you transferred a total of one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars from the marital checking account into various shadow accounts, including an offshore shell vehicle titled *Apex Horizon LLC*.”
“That was an investment fund!” Ethan protested.
“It was an account used to purchase luxury jewelry, designer apparel, and weekend resort bookings for Ms. Vanessa Lee,” Evelyn corrected mercilessly. “We have the itemized merchant records, courtesy of the federal forensic accounting audit currently being conducted by Apex Capital’s legal division.”
Ethan’s lawyer winced, rubbing his temples. “Counsel, we acknowledge that certain discretionary funds were… misapplied. However, my client is entitled to fifty percent of the equity in the marital residence at 442 Elmwood Lane. That home has appreciated significantly over the past five years. Its estimated market value is two point eight million dollars. Ethan’s half of that equity—approximately one point four million—more than offsets any disputed expenditures.”
Diane Montgomery let out a soft, dry laugh from the end of the table.
Ethan’s head snapped toward his mother. “What’s funny, Mom? You think it’s funny that you stole my home?”
“Ethan, you truly are Arthur’s son,” Diane said, her voice dripping with pity. “You have spent thirty-five years mistaking other people’s generosity for your own achievement.”
Diane leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table.
“Mr. Barnes,” Diane said, addressing Ethan’s public defender directly. “Have you examined Exhibit C of the trust indenture?”
Barnes frowned, flipping through the binder until he reached the colored tab marked *Exhibit C*. As his eyes scanned the text, his expression shifted from tired professional weariness to sheer horror.
“What is it?” Ethan demanded, leaning over to read the page. “What does it say?”
“Exhibit C is the Clawback and Debt Assignment Rider,” Evelyn Reed announced for the official record. “When the Diane Montgomery Family Trust funded the down payment of three hundred thousand dollars five years ago, it did so via a secured promissory deed of trust registered against the property. That promissory deed carried a compounding interest rate of eight percent per annum, payable in full upon any event of default—including divorce, abandonment, or criminal fraud.”
Ethan’s face went completely white. “What?”
“In addition,” Evelyn continued calmly, “the trust covered every major capital improvement on the property: the pool installation, the kitchen renovation, the slate roof replacement. Total debt encumbered against the property by the Montgomery Family Trust: one point seven million dollars.”
Evelyn smiled at Ethan, delivering the final, fatal blow.
“The house is worth two point eight million, Mr. Montgomery. The first mortgage is nine hundred thousand. The Montgomery Trust holds a secured senior lien of one point seven million. Once those secured debts are paid, the total net equity remaining in the house is approximately two hundred thousand dollars.”
Ethan stared at her, his lips parting in soundless horror.
“And pursuant to the infidelity and asset dissipation forfeiture clauses embedded in your occupancy rider,” Evelyn concluded, closing her binder with a sharp, resonant thud, “your share of that remaining two hundred thousand dollars is precisely zero. You don't have equity, Ethan. In fact, after we subtract the one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars you stole from marital accounts, plus Claire’s legal fees… you owe my client thirty-six thousand dollars.”
Ethan shot out of his chair, knocking his paper cup of water across the table, soaking his lawyer’s paperwork.
“You set me up!” Ethan roared, his finger shaking violently as he pointed it at Diane. “You set me up from day one! You gave her the house! You gave her my money! You’re my mother!”
Diane slowly rose from her chair, looking down at her son from her full height, her silver hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights.
“I am your mother, Ethan,” Diane whispered, her voice trembling not with rage, but with the profound, devastating sorrow of a parent who has finally closed the door on a lost cause. “And for thirty-five years, I prayed you would choose to be a good man. I prayed you wouldn't become the parasite your father was. But when you walked through that door two weeks ago, kissing that girl while Claire stood waiting with a cake she spent three days baking for you… I knew my prayers were dead. You didn't just break your marriage, Ethan. You broke this family. And I will not allow you to destroy Claire the way Arthur destroyed me.”
Ethan looked around the room.
His lawyer wouldn't meet his eyes. The court reporter’s fingers were still clicking away, recording every word of his ruin into the permanent state archive. And I sat across from him, entirely dry-eyed, watching him not with hatred, not with pain, but with the cold, detached pity one might feel for a stranger who had set fire to his own coat.
May you like
Ethan collapsed back into his chair, buried his face in his trembling hands, and finally began to weep.
***
