“I’ll get it,” he said, walking to the front door. He came back a moment later, his face completely pale, holding a thick manila envelope. He looked at me, then at the envelope, confusion and panic warring in his eyes. “What is that?” David asked from across the table, his lawyer instincts suddenly kicking in.

I set my fork down and wiped my mouth. The table went dead silent. “Those are divorce papers,” I said, my voice steady and loud enough for the entire room to hear. “And inside that envelope is a forensic accounting of the $814,000 in real estate you’ve been hiding from me under Ridgeline Holdings LLC.” My husband dropped the envelope on the floor like it was on fire.

He couldn’t speak. He just stood there, his mouth opening and closing. David stood up immediately, his chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor. “Now hold on a minute,” he started, putting his hands up in a placating gesture. “Let’s not do this right now.

You need to calm down.” I turned my eyes to my cousin. “Oh, I am perfectly calm, David. Almost as calm as you were when you drafted the email telling my husband to make me quit my job so I couldn’t afford a lawyer.” My aunt gasped loudly.

The rest of my family sat frozen in shock. I reached under my chair and pulled out a separate folder I had prepared just for him. I tossed it onto the dining table. It landed right next to his plate. “That is a copy of the formal complaint my attorney filed with the state bar association yesterday morning, along with printed copies of every single email you sent him,” I said, staring directly into David’s panicked eyes.

“You aren’t just losing your place at this table, David. You’re going to lose your license.” The silence in the room was deafening.

My husband looked like he was going to be sick. David stared at the folder on the table as if it were a bomb.

I stood up, grabbed my purse from the counter, and looked at my family. “I’ve paid the rent on this house through the end of the month. Mark, you can pack your things. You have plenty of other properties to stay at.” I walked out the front door, leaving my soon-to-be ex-husband and my treacherous cousin to face the fallout of the family they had destroyed.

I got into my car, started the engine, and for the first time in six years, I didn’t worry about the budget.