Chapter 6 - The Subpoena and the Storm
By Wednesday morning, the house in Asheville was no longer a home; it was a battleground. I had already filed for divorce, retaining the top family law attorneys in North Carolina, alongside emergency injunctions freezing every joint asset Thomas and I shared. Botanica Pure’s legal team had airtight firewalls protecting corporate accounts, ensuring Thomas couldn't touch a single dime of the empire I built from scratch.
I was at my mother’s kitchen table, going over custody filings with my attorney, when my phone buzzed. It was a text message from an unknown number containing a photo of a federal subpoena.
Benjamin Swift had been officially served.
Vance Porter called five minutes later. "Jade, it's moving faster than anticipated. The moment the federal marshals dropped the papers at Benjamin's apartment, his bookies realized the money pipeline was permanently severed. They aren't waiting for a court date. Benjamin is panicking, and he’s trying to liquidate whatever he has left to skip town."
"Is Carol shielding him?" I asked, sipping my coffee.
"Carol is currently barricaded in your Asheville house with Thomas," Vance replied. "She’s playing the frail, victimized matriarch to the hilt, convincing Thomas that you’re working with federal agents to ruin them all out of spite. Thomas is completely under her spell—he’s threatening to file counter-suits against you for defamation."
"Let him try," I said calmly. "The security footage of Carol striking Zoey is already in the hands of the family court judge, alongside the pediatric medical reports. Thomas can sue me until the cows come home; he’s about to find out what it means to be legally and financially irrelevant."
Later that evening, Thomas showed up at my mother’s house.
I watched from the upstairs window as he stepped out of his sleek sedan, marching up the walkway with an expression of aggrieved entitlement. He pounded on the front door, his posture rigid. My mother answered it, but I walked down the stairs before she could speak, stepping into the entryway and locking the deadbolt halfway.
"Open the door, Jade," Thomas demanded through the frosted glass.
I unlocked it and pulled it open just enough to block his entry, keeping the security chain securely latched.
"You’ve lost your mind," Thomas hissed, his face red with frustration. "The police—well, not the police, but Benjamin’s phone is blowing up, federal investigators are asking questions at his club, and Mom hasn't stopped crying for twenty-four hours. You’ve blown up our lives over a minor domestic incident!"
"A minor domestic incident," I repeated, my voice ice-cold. "Your mother assaulted our two-year-old daughter, Thomas. And your brother stole four million dollars from my medical expense account to fund his gambling addiction. If you think this is the end of it, you are profoundly delusional."
"She’s my family, Jade!" Thomas shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. "What am I supposed to do? Just throw my mother and my brother to the wolves?"
"Yes," I said simply. "Or you can jump into the den with them. The choice has always been yours."
He stared at me through the gap in the door, the reality of what he had chosen finally beginning to dawn behind his hollow eyes. He had chosen weakness. He had chosen the phantom prestige of the Swift name over the safety of his own flesh and blood.
May you like
"You’ll never see a dime of my assets in the divorce," Thomas snarled, dropping the mask of civility entirely. "I’ll drag this out for ten years. I’ll make sure you spend every penny Botanica Pure ever made just fighting me in court."
"File whatever you want, Thomas," I said, and closed the door in his face.
