Chapter 4 - The Domestic Trap
By 6:00 PM that evening, Naomi walked through the front door of her suburban home carrying her briefcase with the casual ease of someone returning from a routine day at the office.
The house was quiet. The smell of takeout had been replaced by the scent of roasted garlic—Garrett must have tried to cook something special to butter her up before dropping the bomb.
“Naomi?” Garrett called out from the kitchen, stepping into the hallway holding a glass of wine. He looked handsome, groomed, and entirely too relaxed. He flashed his signature lopsided smile. “Hey, babe. How was your day? You looked a little stressed this morning.”
Naomi set her briefcase down on the entryway table, turning to face him with an expression of polite, detached curiosity.
“It was an eventful day, Garrett,” she said smoothly, walking into the kitchen and pouring herself a glass of sparkling water. “Lots of restructuring at TechVista. You’d be amazed at how messy corporate acquisitions can be when you start auditing the books.”
Garrett’s eyes flickered for a fraction of a second—a micro-expression of unease that he quickly masked behind a chuckle. “Ah, tech companies. Always playing fast and loose with spending, right?”
“You have no idea,” Naomi agreed, taking a slow sip of her water. She leaned against the kitchen island, watching him with hooded eyes. “Speaking of spending… do you remember that marketing director at TechVista? Sienna Brooks?”
Garrett froze. The wine glass in his hand tilted slightly, red liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim. He forced a dry cough, looking down at the counter. “Sienna? Uh… I don’t think so. Why would I know her?”
“Oh, I just assumed,” Naomi said innocently, tilting her head. “She seems to have a very active lifestyle. Lots of travel. Chicago, New York, San Francisco. Interestingly enough, her travel expenses matched up almost perfectly with some of your personal business trips over the last year. Small world, isn’t it?”
Garrett’s face drained of color so fast it looked like someone had pulled a plug in his veins. The wine glass hit the counter with a sharp, echoing *clack*, red wine spilling across the granite surface.
“Naomi…” Garrett started, his voice suddenly tight, stripped of all its easy charm. “What… what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about embezzlement, Garrett,” Naomi said, her voice dropping all pretense of warmth, turning into the cold, jagged edge of a meat cleaver. “I’m talking about corporate fraud. I’m talking about the fact that your little girlfriend has been funding her romantic getaways with company money—money belonging to Bennett Capital.”
Garrett stepped back, his eyes wide with genuine, unadulterated panic. The mask had completely shattered. The charming, carefree husband was gone, replaced by a cornered rat realizing he had stepped into a steel trap.
“You… you knew,” he whispered, his hands trembling. “You knew the whole time?”
“I found out yesterday evening,” Naomi said calmly, watching him squirm with clinical detachment. “While you were upstairs whispering sweet nothings to her on your laptop, talking about how ‘Naomi barely notices me anymore’ and how your lawyer was helping you plan a strategic divorce.”
Garrett swallowed hard, his throat working convulsively. “Naomi, let me explain. It wasn’t what it looked like—Sienna was just… she was just a mistake, a distraction—”
“Spare me, Garrett,” Naomi cut him off, her voice slicing through the air like a razor. She stood up from the counter, towering over him despite her smaller stature, radiating a terrifying, absolute authority. “You wanted a divorce? You wanted to be strategic? Well, congratulations. You’re getting your wish.”
She reached into her designer handbag, pulled out a thick, legal-bound manila folder, and dropped it heavily onto the kitchen island right beside the spilled wine.
“What is this?” Garrett breathed, staring at the folder as if it were coated in poison.
“That,” Naomi said, stepping past him toward the stairs, “is a petition for divorce filed by Miranda Stone. It details your financial dependency, your total lack of marital contribution, your systemic infidelity, and your active collusion in corporate embezzlement through your mistress.”
Garrett reached out blindly, grabbing the edge of the counter to steady himself. “Naomi, you can’t do this—we can work this out—!”
Naomi paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking back over her shoulder with a smile that could have frozen hell.
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“Enjoy your freedom, Garrett,” she said quietly. “Because by tomorrow morning, you won't have a wife, you won’t have a dime, and your girlfriend will be singing like a canary in a federal holding cell.”
***
