Adeline stared at the documents as if they had arrived in another language.
Warren did not raise his voice. “I froze our joint accounts this morning,” he said. “Your access to my income ends now. I filed for divorce. And I filed for sole custody.”
The lobby, already full of ruin, somehow got quieter.
Adeline blinked rapidly. “What?”
“Our son is not growing up inside this family’s moral landfill,” Warren said. “He is not watching you insult people who work for a living while spending money you didn’t earn. He is not learning from Randolph that cruelty is sophistication or from Prescott that violence is a leadership style. You told me I should be grateful your family let me in. You said your father’s name elevated me. Let me be clear, Adeline: the only thing your family ever gave me was a better understanding of exactly what I never want my child to become.”
She crumpled. Not gracefully. She simply folded, papers scattering around her, sobbing into the marble she had spent years walking over like it belonged to her bloodline.
Warren looked at me over her shaking body and gave one small nod. I returned it. Then he turned and walked back out into the city.