Five minutes after my divorce was final, my father gripped my arm outside the courthouse and said, “Block every card, right now.” That night my ex tried to spend $300,000 on his mistress’s sapphire necklace with my company’s black card — in a club my firm owned.

Trevor stared at the folder.

“My daughter is going to decide which copy gets delivered,” my father said. “I want you to understand that it’s entirely her choice, and that whichever she picks, you’ve already lost, because the money’s documented and the LLC’s a shell and you signed every transfer. The only thing you get to influence, Trevor, is the tone. Civil is quieter. Criminal is louder. You’ve got until the end of the week to make quiet attractive, which means you return what’s recoverable, you sign a confession of judgment, and you never contact my daughter again except through lawyers. Or Patel gets his lunch. Your choice.”

There it was.

My father’s version.

Quieter than Trevor’s.

Trevor looked at me.

“Mari. Please. Prison. You wouldn’t—”

“I haven’t decided,” I said. “That’s the honest answer. My father says civil’s faster and criminal’s cleaner and he’ll back either. What I know for sure is that you’re off every account as of yesterday, you’re off the membership, the LLC is frozen pending the civil suit my attorney filed at eight this morning, and Vanessa’s apartment in River North is paid through the end of the month and not a day past it, because the money that was paying for it was mine and it’s not paying for anything anymore.”