Marriage On Hold by Mark Twain 8
Chapter 8 The Ledger Crisis
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Chapter 8 The Ledger Crisis
Dad’s first reaction to the lawyer’s letter was pure, unadulterated rage.
He tore the letter to shreds, then turned and screamed hysterically at Mom, “That ungrateful brat! She’s insane! How dare she sue us! She wants to tear this family apart!”
Mom trembled with fear, utterly at a loss.
“Dorian, what do we do?” she stammered. “Why would Syl do this? Did someone con her into it?”
“What does she think she’s doing? She’s my daughter. I raised her! How dare she take me to court?”
Dad’s face twisted into an expression of delusional confidence.
“She’s just been brainwashed by some lowlife guy! Wait till I get my hands on her. I’ll lock her up for a few days and beat her to set her straight!”
He immediately pulled every string he had to track me down, only to find that every trace of me had vanished without a trace.
He went to my university, only to be told I’d already filed for a leave of absence, and my records had been encrypted and transferred an hour earlier.
He checked every place I’d ever worked. The managers all said I’d quit long ago and had been paid
in full.
Fuming, he went to the police to report me missing.
After hearing his story, the officer stared at him like he was crazy, then shot back. “Sir, are you sure your daughter is missing, or did she just run away to get away from you?”
Just as Dad was overwhelmed and frantic, not knowing what to do, the second “gift” arrived.
An anonymous email, containing a detailed document outlining his “Shared Accountability System” and “Balance Scale Theory,” along with high-resolution copies of the ledger’s most critical and shocking pages, was sent to every member of his company’s board, all his business partners, and relevant industry associations.
The subject line read: “On Entrepreneur Dorian Ravenscroft’s Innovative Family Management
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Chapter 8 The Ledger Crisis
Model-Exploiting His Daughter to Subsidize His Worthless Son.”
The scandal sent shockwaves through every circle he ran in.
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The image of his being a scholarly businessman and strict but loving father that Dad had carefully cultivated over the years was ruined overnight.
At the office, colleagues looked at him with a mix of contempt and morbid curiosity.
The executives who once treated him respectfully summoned him for a talk, their faces grim.
Business partners he’d befriended suddenly stopped answering his calls, and all their joint projects got put on hold indefinitely.
Overnight, he went from a respected industry veteran to a monster who exploited his own daughter, a laughingstock everyone whispered about behind his back.
Also, Barnaby got his own personalized “gift” right on schedule.
I’d compiled everything into a ten-page, illustrated PDF: he’d spent my hard-earned money without a shred of guilt, how he’d let his girlfriend humiliate me nonstop, how he’d only cared about selling our house while I was scrambling to scrape together thirty-three grand for his compensation fee, and every other bad thing he’d done his whole life, which needed to be covered
I sent it to Eileen and all her close friends’ group chats and her Instagram.
Eileen smashed her phone the second she finished reading.
The looks her friends gave her were now dripping with disdain and mockery.
The reputation of a woman who fed her vanity by exploiting her future sister-in-law’s hard-earned money was even worse than dating a man who lived off women.
She stormed straight to the hospital and screamed at Barnaby, who was still moaning in agony in his hospital bed. “Barnaby, I must’ve been blind to ever date you! Are you even a man? You’re nothing but a parasite who sucks the life out of his own sister! You make me sick!”
“So what if I spent my sister’s money?” Barnaby roared back, utterly unrepentant. “It’s a family matter, none of your business! The money you spent came from her, too!”
“Your family? Your family is a damn asylum!”
Eileen grabbed her designer bag, stormed out without looking back, and left him with a venomous curse hanging in the air.
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Chapter 8 The Ledger Crisis
“It’s over, Barnaby! You and your screwed-up family can rot together for all I care!”
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Barnaby stared blankly at Eileen’s retreating figure, a bone-deep panic gripping him for the very first time
Back at home, Dad received a court summons.
When he saw the name “Sylvie Ravenscroft” printed next to the plaintiff’s title, his hands shook so badly he could barely hold the
paper.
He had no choice but to sell the small apartment he’d been saving for Barnaby’s wedding and hire the most expensive lawyer in the city,
After reviewing all the evidence I’d provided, especially the original ledger, the lawyer just shook his head at Dad and said one thing.
“Mr. Ravenscroft, you have no chance of winning in this lawsuit, whether from the standpoint of human decency or legal principle. I suggest you start figuring out how to gather the funds immediately.”
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Chapter 9 Scales of Justice
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