Page 9 of Cruel Lies

Then I look at him.

I have seen a lot of money in my life. I've moved sums that would make this stack look like fucking pocket lint. But it's always been handled with more discretion than this. His disregard for the proper way to do things is pissing me off. This shit says,I'm sloppy and careless.This stack of bills is the move of a man whowatched a mafia television show once and can't wait to go tell all his friends about how he dropped it on my desk just like in the movies.

I don't touch it.

"You should put that away," I advise him.

"It's real."

"I'm sure it is. Put it away anyway."

He hesitates, then leaves it sitting there. A little stubborn thing, like a spoiled brat who won't pick up his toys. "I brought that so you know that I'm not asking for the usual shit," he explains.

He pauses again, like the next thing he's going to say is too distasteful even by his low, low standards. His tongue flickers out like a snake's to wet his chapped lips.

We're getting to the part he actually came here for. Every tell is blaring. His whole face changes. He's been waiting for fuck knows how to say this out loud to somebody.

Then he clears his throat and declares, "I want her to getnothing."

I stay silent. It's the best move, more often than not. Fools blabber and incriminate themselves. Wise men keep their mouths shut and let them do it.

"Nothing," he blathers on. "Not the house. Not the cars. Not the joint accounts. I want it. I want her out and I want her gone with what she came in with—which was basically nothing, by the way. I made all of it. That's my money."

That's my money.

I've heard that before.

Mine. All of it. You came in with nothing.

That's a man bellowing in my memory, screaming until his face went red and his knuckles went white and spit flecked his lips from the effort of his shouting.

The woman he was screaming at didn't answer. Not even when he threw a glass and it shattered on the wall just inches shy of where she cowered.

"With regard to marital property in this state, the source of the income isn't a means of contesting ownership during a separation of assets."

He waves that off. "That's what you're for. To make it not matter."

I pick up the ebony fountain pen off my desk and twirl it through my fingers. It's better than wrapping those fingers around his throat, but only because it's not quite as messy. "Do you have children, Todd?"

He blinks like he'd forgotten all about them.

"Two," he grunts.

"Have you given any thought to your desired custody arrangement?"

"Yeah, actually, I have." He leans in again. Close enough that I can see the burst blood vessels in his nose from too many old fashioneds at Torrisi after work. "I want them, too." He straightens up and smiles viciously. "I don't want shared, or every other weekend, or holidays, none of that bullshit. I. Want.Everything."

I've done a lot of bad things. I'm not a man who has any business judging anybody. My hands are not clean, not by a long shot. They never will be.

But there are still things that turn my stomach.

This is one of them.

"You want to blindside your wife by divorcing her, taking everything she owns, and denying her access to her kids," I state coldly.

"What?"

He smiles. He thinks I've finally understood him. He thinks I'mon his side.