Chapter 6 - Legal Maneuvers and Hard Lines
By Thursday, the personal crisis had evolved into a legal reality. Mara met with a divorce attorney in a sleek office downtown—a sharp woman named Diane Vance, who shared no relation to Peter but possessed a fierce, unyielding demeanor that Mara immediately trusted.
Diane reviewed the police report, the pawnshop intake form, the security still, and the screenshots of the group chat.
"This is as clean-cut a case of asset misappropriation and malicious harassment as I’ve seen," Diane said, adjusting her glasses across the bridge of her nose. "Because the ring was purchased with your inheritance money prior to the marriage and kept in your separate ownership, it remains your non-marital property. Furthermore, his actions in framing a minor constitute severe emotional distress. We can file for an emergency expedited separation, freeze the joint accounts to prevent him from draining them further, and bar him from the residence."
"Do it," Mara said without hesitation.
"It’s going to get ugly," Diane warned. "Men like Peter, when cornered publicly, tend to lash out. He's going to try to paint you as cold, vindictive, and unreasonable."
"Let him try," Mara replied. "I have the receipts."
True to Diane’s prediction, Peter’s counterattack began Thursday evening through a barrage of text messages and voicemails. Since Mara had blocked his direct number, he resorted to emailing her corporate library account and calling her office line.
Subject: Please, Mara, let's talk like adults."You've humiliated me in front of my entire family and my mother. You've destroyed my career over a stupid financial mistake that I was going to fix. If you don't call me back tonight, I'm going to contest the separation and make sure you get nothing out of the house."
Mara printed the email, forwarded it directly to Diane for the court file, and deleted it without replying.
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On Friday morning, a process server tracked Peter down at his motel and handed him the formal divorce papers, along with a temporary restraining order barring him from contacting Mara or approaching within five hundred feet of her apartment or the public library.
The fortress Peter had built out of lies and social manipulation was crumbling around him, brick by brick, leaving him completely exposed.
