Wife Takes Down Husband's Firm

I stepped into our house—no, not ours anymore, never again ours—with hands that wouldn't stop trembling. The image of Raya's body floating in that crimson water played on endless loop behind my eyelids. Every time I blinked, I saw her reaching out, her final moments spent begging for help that never came.

The shower couldn't wash away what I'd witnessed. I stood under scalding water until my skin turned raw, but the stain of tonight's events had seeped too deep.

When I emerged, still dripping and wrapped in a towel, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. The woman staring back was someone I barely recognized—hollow-eyed and grim, with something hardened in her expression that hadn't been there before. This was the face of someone who had witnessed a murder and the subsequent betrayal of everything she believed in.

I dressed methodically, then retrieved my laptop and a small recording device I'd purchased months ago when I first suspected Alistair was having an affair. I'd never used it then, too afraid of what I might discover. Now, I turned it on without hesitation.

The front door slammed. Alistair was back. I slipped the recorder into my pocket and steeled myself.

He found me in the study, his clothes changed but the haunted look in his eyes unchanged. For one fleeting moment, I thought I saw genuine grief there—until he spoke.

"We need to get our stories straight," he said, pouring himself a generous whiskey. "If anyone asks, we were home all night."

"Your sister is dead," I said flatly, watching him flinch. "Murdered by the woman you're protecting. And you're worried about alibis?"

"It was an accident," he snapped, knocking back his drink. "Aurora didn't mean to take Raya. It was supposed to be—" He stopped abruptly.

"My sister," I finished for him. "It was supposed to be Teagan. My autistic sister who's never harmed anyone in her life. And that makes it better?"

"You don't understand what's at stake here," Alistair paced, agitated. "If this gets out, everything I've built—everything *we've* built—will be destroyed."

"You prevented me from calling the police," I said, making sure the recorder caught every word. "You physically restrained me and forced me to sign that waiver."

"I was protecting us!" he shouted, slamming his glass down. "If I'd known it was Raya..." His voice broke, and for a second, I glimpsed the man I thought I'd married. But it vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"You need to understand my position," he said, his tone shifting to something almost pleading. "Aurora made a terrible mistake, but she didn't mean to hurt Raya. We can't let one tragedy destroy three more lives."

I stared at him, feeling nothing but cold contempt. "Three lives? You, Aurora, and who else? Because I know you're not counting me."

He reached for me, but I stepped back. "Gabriela, please. We can get through this together. I need you."

I said nothing, turning away from him. My silence seemed to unnerve him more than any words could have.

That night, I slept in the guest room with the door locked. In the morning, I contacted the most ruthless divorce attorney in the city.

The weeks that followed blurred together in a haze of legal meetings and sleepless nights. I refused to speak to Alistair beyond what was absolutely necessary, watching his desperation grow with each passing day.

"You can't do this," he cornered me in the kitchen one morning, his face haggard from lack of sleep. "I'll fight you every step of the way. You think you can walk away with half my company? You'll be lucky if you can afford a studio apartment when I'm done."

I recorded every threat, every outburst.

The next day, his tone changed completely. "Remember when we first met?" he asked, his voice soft as he caught me in the hallway. "Raya brought you home, said you were the most interesting person she'd ever met. I fell in love with you that day."

"No," I replied, the first word I'd spoken to him in days. "You didn't."

During the initial divorce hearing, I watched Alistair's face as my attorney revealed my substantial ownership stake in Crawford Enterprises—shares I'd been quietly accumulating throughout our marriage. The board members present shifted uncomfortably when we presented documentation of Alistair's recent business missteps, decisions made while he was distracted by Aurora.

"Mrs. Crawford has been effectively running the company's Asia-Pacific expansion for the past eighteen months," my attorney stated. "During which time Mr. Crawford has been absent from forty-three percent of scheduled board meetings."

Alistair's face flushed with anger, but I saw something else there too: fear. For the first time, he was realizing I wasn't just his wife. I was a force to be reckoned with.

And I was just getting started.