Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 39740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
I’d been collecting evidence since my last year in high school. I’d bugged my Dad’s home office as well as the conservatory where he and Mom like to hang out in the evenings and have their meaningful conversations.
I guess he never thought he had to keep anything from me because I was so well trained that sometimes he’d discuss certain things in front of me, all of which I pretended to ignore while filing the information away for later use.
All those late nights I stayed back at the company office when everyone was commending me for being a hardworking young man fresh out of college, I was actually hacking into their system. Papers that were earmarked for shredding were saved and poured over for anything that could be of use to bury them.
I gave it all to the authorities. The case dragged on for a while but in the end, they ended up being sentenced to more time than even I expected. Mom tried to get Dad charged with statutory rape because she was convinced his affair with Lacey had started way before they were exposed.
He denied it, of course, but when the truth came out that he’d started when she was sixteen, there was nothing they could do because the age of consent in our state just so happens to be sixteen. There was talk that he might’ve groomed her, but those who knew her swear it was the other way around, that she went after him.
Apparently, she used to brag about the older man she had seduced but never gave up a name. When that didn’t work, Mom went for a divorce, but too bad for her, all of Dad’s assets were frozen until the trial was concluded, and since she never expected anything like this to happen, she wasn’t prepared financially.
She tried calling me a couple of times, all of which I ignored. She had no problem subjecting me to a life of misery so she could keep her cushy lifestyle, and I can’t find it in me to care what happens to her.
I never spoke to her again, not since a couple of nights before my wedding when I left their house for the last time. Last I heard, she was broke and had moved out of state to be closer to family. Whatever, it’s none of my concern. I don’t want her anywhere near my wife and kids because she lacks the maternal instinct of a slug.
Janice was arrested and convicted of theft. She, too, tried to claim innocence, but the video evidence from the security cameras showing her breaking into the home and taking the ring was enough to put an end to her claims.
Too bad for her; in this state, if you steal something with a value above five thousand dollars, it carries a hefty sentence. The ring she stole was appraised for more than half a million dollars, which came with a sentence of almost thirty years.
Lacey, for accepting that ring and having no proof that she didn’t know it was stolen, was given ten years and a fine. Her mother did not back her claim that she didn’t know it was stolen but instead blamed her for wanting a ring that was as big as Lily’s.
She’d probably get out in another year or so, knowing how these things go and if my bloodthirsty wife doesn’t pay someone off to keep her in there. It doesn’t matter anyway since her life is pretty much over. Those videos somehow made their way onto the internet, not by me, of course, and she became kind of a local legend, and not in a good way.
She had nothing left since her Dad was broke and in prison. She flunked out of college, and everything she owned was auctioned off for her Dad’s defense, or so I heard his parents say. When she does finally get out, she’d be lucky to get a minimum-wage job.
My father sent me a letter when he first went to jail, but I burned it without reading it, and that was the last contact he attempted. I don’t miss them since I’d mourned the relationships long before this happened.
They stopped being my parents the moment they opened their mouths and ordered me to sell my future so they could live a life of luxury. I don’t hate them, neither do I bear them any love beyond the natural love of a child for his parents.
I don’t have a need for them anyway since my life is so full. I have grandparents, a new mother, a wife, and two wonderful kids who keep both their mother and me on our toes, so I don’t have time to sit down and brood over what could’ve been.
Every day, I’m grateful that I loved myself enough to want better for myself. The thought that I could be married to Lacey right now gives me the shivers. I’ll take my son and his pet snakes and frogs, and pretty much anything that his mother is afraid of, as well as my daughter’s sneakiness, which I can already foresee is going to be a problem any day instead of being tied to something as horrible as her.