Chapter 14 - The Divorce TableThe divorce mediation took place six weeks later.
By then, Diego had changed.
Not grown.
Not healed.
Changed the way spoiled fruit changes when left too long in heat.
His face had thinned. His eyes had sunk deeper. His expensive suit hung slightly loose. Jail had not made him sorry. It had made him furious that the world had stopped obeying.
We sat in separate rooms.
That was Priya’s rule.
No hallway encounters.
No emotional ambushes.
No “closure” conversations disguised as manipulation.
Diego’s attorney carried offers back and forth.
First, Diego wanted half the condo appreciation.
Priya laughed so hard she had to remove her glasses.
“Premarital property. Sole title. Separate payments. Documented attempted fraud. Try again.”
Then Diego wanted spousal support.
Priya’s smile vanished.
“From the woman he assaulted while trying to steal her home? Put that in writing. Please.”
The offer disappeared.
Then Diego wanted a mutual non-disparagement clause.
I considered it.
Priya watched me carefully.
“It means you couldn’t publicly discuss what happened except in legal proceedings.”
“No,” I said.
“Good.”
Finally, after four hours of failed intimidation through paper, Diego requested one direct conversation.
“No,” Priya said immediately.
I looked at the wall.
Part of me wanted to see him.
Not because I missed him.
Because I wanted to know if looking at him would still pull me backward.
Priya seemed to understand.
“You owe him nothing,” she said.
“I know.”
But I also knew something else.
Some doors have to be closed by your own hand.
“We’ll do five minutes,” I said. “Attorneys present. Recorded.”
Priya frowned but nodded.
Diego entered the conference room like a man walking into enemy territory.
He sat across from me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
He looked at the healed scar near my hairline.
His jaw tightened.
“You ruined my life,” he said.
There it was.
Not sorry.
Not I hurt you.
Not I was wrong.
I ruined his life.
I folded my hands on the table.
“No, Diego. I stopped letting you ruin mine.”
His eyes flashed. “You think Lucas cares about you? You think Morgan will be there forever? You think this attention lasts?”
“I hope it doesn’t,” I said. “I want peace, not attention.”
He laughed bitterly. “You always acted better than us.”
“No. I acted like my work, my body, and my home belonged to me. Your family experienced that as disrespect.”
His face reddened.
“You were my wife.”
“I was never your property.”
The words hung between us.
Simple.
Final.
Diego looked away first.
For one strange second, I saw the boy he might have been before Rafael taught him love meant control and Victoria taught him women existed to serve family ambition.
Then the second passed.
“I did love you,” he said.
I believed him.
That was the saddest part.
Diego had loved me in the only way he understood love: possession, pride, convenience, conquest.
But broken love still breaks people.
“Maybe,” I said softly. “But you loved power more.”
His eyes shone with anger or grief. I did not care which.
I stood.
“Sign the papers.”
Two hours later, he did.
The divorce settlement was clean.
I kept my condo.
I kept my retirement.
I kept my name.
Diego received nothing from my separate property.
The court preserved my right to testify and speak truthfully.
When I signed the final page, my hand did not shake.
Outside, snow had begun falling over Denver.
Morgan waited by the elevators with two paper cups of hot chocolate.
“Is it done?”
I took one cup.
“It’s done.”
She smiled. “How do you feel?”
I watched snow gather against the glass.
For years, I thought freedom would feel like fireworks.
It did not.
It felt quiet.
May you like
It felt like breathing without asking permission.
“It feels,” I said, “like my life just came back to me.”
