No Mercy for My Billionaire Wife

1 After the tender fell through, our stock was aggressively shorted, and our credit facilities were severed overnight. All I needed was twenty million dollars to keep my father’s life work from going under the hammer. I swallowed whatever scrap of pride I had left and called Helena, my wife of seven years—a marriage we had kept strictly confidential to protect her corporate standing. On the other end of the line, her tone was as cool and dismissive as if she were swatting away a fly. "No one forced you to pitch against Tristan," she said. "Consider this an expensive lesson." Tristan Cole was the scholarship student she had sponsored for nearly a decade. He had stolen the core proprietary architectural designs I spent six months developing, yet Helena had turned around and accused me of predatory competition. That same evening, Tristan posted a photo on Instagram featuring a limited-edition Patek Philippe: Big sister told me that when a man builds his own empire, he should never compromise on himself. My jaw clenched so hard my molars ached. I blocked the post. I grabbed the deed to our family home, preparing to put it up as collateral for a high-interest bridge loan, when the call from the emergency room came. My father, who suffered from severe coronary artery disease, had been cornered at his front door by aggressive debt collectors. They pushed him to the hardwood floor. He never woke up. Outside the trauma bay, I signed the DNR and cessation of resuscitation orders, then called an attorney to draft the divorce papers. At three in the morning, Helena finally called back. Her voice carried the faint, condescending charity of an aristocrat tossing a coin into the dirt. "Tristan bought the watch and still had two million left over," she said. "Come to my office tomorrow to pick up the check. And behave yourself from now on, Rowan. Stop picking fights with him." I looked down at the certified death certificate in my hand. "Don't bother," I said quietly. "I'll see you in court in three days." ... "Mr. North, Mrs. Prescott asked me to tell you that throwing tantrums is entirely unproductive." The voice belonged to Bridget, Helena’s chief of staff. She had clearly overheard my parting words before I hung up and was calling to put me back in my place. "Mrs. Prescott wants to remind you that marital property division is not a negotiation tactic," Bridget continued smoothly. "Even if you file a petition, your father’s corporate liabilities remain his estate's responsibility." The refrigerated chill of the hospital morgue seemed to seep straight through the soles of my shoes and up my spine. I looked at the stainless steel gurney where a white sheet covered my father’s face. Slowly, meticulously, I folded the death certificate into quarters and slipped it into my inside pocket. "What else did she say?" Bridget hesitated. "Mrs. Prescott said that if you attend Mr. Cole’s project launch celebration tomorrow morning at ten sharp and apologize to him in person, a twenty-million-dollar liquidity injection will clear into your father's business account before noon. She stressed that this is for the good of the North family." I watched the heavy steel doors of the morgue slide shut with a dull, hollow clang. "Understood," I said, and switched my phone to silent. What Tristan had stolen was merely the client deck—the shiny, presentable surface. The true soul of the technology was a set of foundational blueprints my father kept locked in his executive office safe. Tristan had taken the glory. But I was going back for the bone marrow. The next morning, at nine o’clock, I stood in front of the midtown office tower where I had spent the last three years building our firm. The brass lettering of our company name had already been pried off the lobby wall. In its place hung a slick vinyl banner welcoming Tristan Cole’s venture. The turnstile rejected my badge. Security stepped forward, arms crossed. "Mr. North, ownership transferred yesterday. You’re no longer on the access list." Before I could speak, the elevator chimed. Tristan emerged, wearing the bespoke charcoal suit Helena had likely bought him and the diamond-bezel timepiece from his feed. A flock of newly hired junior associates trailed behind him. When he saw me, a flicker of panic darted across his eyes before dissolving into his signature look of wide-eyed, boyish innocence. "Rowan! You actually came." He stepped forward, reaching out to clasp my forearm with practiced warmth. "I thought you were still furious with me. I was terrified you’d boycott my celebration." I pulled my arm back, stepping out of his reach. "I’m here for my father’s personal belongings." Tristan’s eyes rounded in theatrical surprise. "Rowan, didn't Helena tell you? North Dynamics entered formal liquidation. Every document and piece of furniture technically belongs to the senior secured creditor now. Which means... they belong to my fund." He offered a mild, gentle smile, though the triumph in his voice was unmistakable. "Still, since you're here, why don't you wait in the executive boardroom? Helena will be here any minute. We can handle the handover together once she arrives." I held his gaze. "You haven't been able to crack the safe, have you?" Tristan’s smile stiffened. The safe behind my father’s desk required a biometric scan coupled with a dual-passcode sequence using our combined birthdates. Tristan could sit in the leather chair, but he was entirely locked out of the core data. "Come on, Rowan," Tristan murmured, recovering his footing. "I just didn't want to damage Arthur's things. If you're going to be so rigid about it, follow me up." Inside the corner office on the top floor, my father’s favorite antique ceramic French press was sitting in the wastebasket, cracked in two. Tristan walked over to the executive swivel chair, sat down, and spun half a circle. "You really don't need to treat me like an enemy, Rowan," he said, steepling his fingers. "I grew up in the Rust Belt with nothing. I wasn't handed a legacy on a silver platter like you. Everything I have, I earned by pulling seventy-hour weeks over those proposals. If you're going to accuse me of stealing your IP, where’s your paper trail?" I ignored him, walked straight to the wall safe behind the mahogany paneling, entered the numeric sequence, and pressed my thumb against the optical reader. A sharp mechanical click echoed through the quiet room. The heavy door swung open. Tristan shot up from the chair, craning his neck to peer inside. I reached into the deep rear compartment and pulled out a thick, sealed manila folder containing my father’s original, timestamped system architectures. Right beside it lay a business card, dropped under the edge of the credenza two days ago when debt collectors had barged in to intimidate my staff. The card was embossed with heavy black font: Ironclad Recovery Group. I slipped both the card and the manila envelope into my leather messenger bag. Just as the zipper pulled shut, the office door swung open. Helena walked in, impeccably tailored in a double-breasted navy pantsuit, her heels clicking with sharp authority against the hardwood floor. Her eyes swept across the room and locked immediately onto the bag in my hands. Her brow furrowed. "Rowan. I told you to come here to apologize, and you start looting the office the second my back is turned?" Tristan immediately hurried over to her side, lightly brushing his fingers against the sleeve of her blazer. "Helena, please, don't be hard on him. He just wanted to collect Arthur's personal effects. I didn't stop him. It's just... I think the proprietary enterprise client lists were in that safe. If Rowan walks out with those, I'm worried about our Q3 rollouts..." Helena’s expression hardened into pure ice. She extended an open palm toward me. "Hand over the bag." I took a half-step back. "These are my father's effects." "Effects?" Helena let out a cold, sharp laugh, as if she had just heard an offensive joke. "Rowan, are you so desperate to manipulate me that you'd invent something that morbid? Your father was on the phone screaming at me two days ago, and now you’re calling his things 'effects'? Hand over the bag. Don't make me call building security to search you." 2 Helena’s hand hung suspended in the air between us. She looked at me the way she might look at an unhinged stranger on a subway platform—a volatile, irrational child demanding attention through dramatic performance. "I have tolerated your passive-aggressive fits for seven years," she said, her voice dropping into that measured, boardroom register she used when terminating vendors. "But using a parent's mortality as leverage? Rowan, where is your decency?" I gripped the strap of my bag until my knuckles turned white. "I told you," I said evenly. "These are his things. You wanted Tristan to have my firm, and you gave it to him. You wanted him to have the pitch, and he took it. But you don't get this. You don't get the last piece of him." Tristan hovered near Helena’s shoulder, tugging gently at her cuff. "Helena, let it go," he whispered, his tone brimming with martyr-like forbearance. "Rowan is clearly in a terrible spot financially. If he needs to sell the client roster to bridge his debts, I understand. I grew up with nothing; I know what panic feels like. Even if it hurts our pipeline, I’ll absorb the loss on my end." It was his masterclass—spinning blatant theft into an act of magnanimous charity. Helena patted the back of Tristan’s hand to soothe him, then turned back to me, her eyes clouded with cold contempt. "Did you hear that? Tristan has more grace in his little finger than you've shown in a decade. Since he’s generous enough to let it slide, I won't waste my time watching you audition for tragedy. Leave the envelope on the desk and get out." I didn't move. Helena took a step closer, her perfume—vetiver and crisp pear, the scent I had bought her for our fifth anniversary—hitting me like a physical blow. "I don't want to have security drag you out into the lobby," she warned. "I'm offering you the courtesy of leaving with your dignity intact." I looked at her face. For seven years, I had held that face in the dark, whispered promises against her skin, and spent late nights reviewing her quarterly forecasts while she slept against my shoulder. Now, she was ready to have security guards pin me to the carpet to protect a thief. Slowly, I reached down, unzipped the main compartment of the bag, and turned it upside down over the low marble coffee table. A set of spare keys. A silver lighter. A travel pack of tissues. And three folded, stamped hospital billing notices clattered against the stone. The manila folder wasn't there. In the fraction of a second between the door opening and Helena stepping inside, I had already slid the envelope into the hollow maintenance gap behind the heavy mahogany credenza. Helena’s gaze flickered over the red-stamped medical notices for half a second before darting away. "What did you take from that safe, Rowan?" "An old desk planner my father used three years ago," I said. I picked up a dusty, spiral-bound calendar sitting on a side console and dropped it onto the table in front of her. "Do you want to run forensics on it?" Her face tightened. The absolute lack of resistance caught her off balance, making her calculated aggression look suddenly crude and theatrical. Tristan stepped into the breach immediately, his voice soft with faux-contrition. "Oh... it really was just a misunderstanding. Rowan, I'm so sorry. I truly thought you were taking the enterprise data. Please don't be angry with Helena—she was only trying to protect our exposure." He stepped forward, reaching out to pat my shoulder in a patronizing display of reconciliation. "Don't touch me," I said. Tristan pulled his hand back as if burned, his lower lip trembling slightly, his eyes instantly welling with moisture. Helena pulled him behind her like a shield. "Rowan North! That is enough!" she snapped, her patience completely snapping. "Tristan offered you an olive branch, and you snap it in half. You want to act like a wounded martyr? Fine. If you have this much pride, let's see how long it sustains you." She pulled her iPhone from her blazer pocket, hit speed dial, and put it on speaker in front of my face. "Corporate Treasury," a crisp voice answered. "Cancel the Centurion secondary card ending in 1288 issued to Rowan North," Helena commanded. "Effective immediately. Freeze all linked credit lines." "Understood, Mrs. Prescott. It's done." Helena hung up and locked her gaze onto mine, her chin raised. "You said you'd see me in court. Go ahead. Until you learn how to look Tristan in the eye and apologize for the sabotage you attempted, you will not see a single cent of Prescott Capital’s money. Let's see how far your stubbornness carries you when the collection notices start piling up." Looking at her, a strange, profound lightness bloomed in my chest. When your heart finally breaks beyond repair, there are no tears. There is only silence. "Understood," I said quietly. I bent down, gathered my keys and the hospital notices, and placed them back in my bag. "Remember what you said today, Helena." As I turned toward the heavy glass doors, I heard Tristan’s hushed, sympathetic murmur behind me: "Helena, what if he actually can't pay Arthur's hospital bills now? Should we really cut him off entirely?" Helena scoffed, her voice sharp with absolute certainty. "He has plenty of personal credit. It’s an act. He’s trying to starve me into submission. Give him three days without an unlimited black card, and he’ll be on his knees outside my townhouse." I stepped out of the tower into the harsh, midday glare of Manhattan. The sunlight was so intense it made my head throb. I sat on the low granite edge of a planter down the block, pulled out my phone, and dialed Audrey Shaw. "Audrey," I said as soon as she picked up. "I have the paper trail. Tristan didn't just pirate the code. He hired Ironclad Recovery Group. The goons who broke into my father’s home were on his payroll." Audrey’s voice came back steady, razor-sharp. "Rowan, if we can link Tristan’s personal or shell accounts to the wire transfers that dispatched that crew, this isn't a civil tort anymore. It's criminal conspiracy, aggravated harassment, and involuntary manslaughter." I took a slow, deep breath, feeling the cold air hit my lungs. "I'm ready." "And the divorce filing?" she asked gently. "I submitted the emergency petition for an ex parte asset freeze this morning. But be prepared: Helena will use every financial lever she has to choke you out. She is used to owning you." "I know," I said. A notification pinged at the top of my screen. It was an Instagram alert from Tristan’s public story. The image showed a set of brass keys resting on a marble kitchen island, with an expansive mid-century craftsman home visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass in the background. His caption read: So grateful for the unwavering faith of someone who believes in me. Finally found a place to call home in this city. My stomach dropped into a sickening void. That was my father’s house in Connecticut. The house he had built with his own hands, the house he was preparing to mortgage to save our payroll. Helena had used her institutional connections to intercept the foreclosure short-sale, buying the deed out from under the bank and transferring it directly to Tristan’s name. And she had paid for it using our joint marital assets. 3 My father had planted a mission fig tree in the backyard of that Connecticut house the summer I turned twelve. Every mark on the kitchen doorframe recorded my height from middle school through my college graduation. Now, it was Tristan’s latest aesthetic backdrop. I locked my screen, swallowed the burning bile in my throat, and hailed a cab to Audrey Shaw’s midtown law offices. By three in the afternoon, Audrey had laid out three separate binders across the polished glass conference table. "Here is the forensic audit of Prescott Capital’s subsidiary movements over the last three weeks," Audrey said, adjusting her wire-rimmed glasses. Her expression was deadpan, almost grim. "Rowan, North Dynamics didn't go under simply because you lost the enterprise tender." She opened the first binder, tapping a series of shell company filings registered in Delaware. "The three investment vehicles that aggressively shorted your stock and coordinated the margin calls on your commercial paper? They trace directly back to limited liability companies owned by Prescott Capital." My fingers froze against the edge of the paper. A faint, uncontrollable tremor ran through my hand. "What are you saying?" "Helena didn't just refuse to bail you out," Audrey said flatly. "She drove the wedge. She actively cut off your secondary private equity bridge loans. She systematically choked your cash flow until North Dynamics had zero liquidity." I stared at the black-and-white transaction logs. The numbers blurred together. I remembered sitting outside Helena’s private study four nights ago, waiting two hours while she finished an overseas conference call just to ask for an emergency credit line. I remembered how she looked when she finally opened the door, a cup of espresso in her hand, her eyes devoid of anything resembling warmth. Business is war, Rowan, she had told me. If your father doesn't have the stomach to defend his capitalization table, he shouldn't be in the market. I run an investment firm, not an orphanage. She hadn't turned me away out of cold business logic. She had turned me away because she was the one holding the blade to our throats. "Why?" The word scraped out of my chest, barely a whisper. Audrey closed the binder with a heavy, final thud. "To clear the runway for Tristan. Tristan needed your proprietary tech stack to secure the venture round from Horizon Partners. If your father’s firm was solvent, you could sue Tristan for IP theft and tie him up in court for years. So Helena broke your company into pieces, letting the collateral default so Tristan could buy the assets out of Chapter 11 for pennies on the dollar." A tight, crushing weight seized my chest, making it impossible to draw a full breath. I had thought she was simply callous. I had thought she was blinded by her vanity, indulging a pet charity case. I never imagined she would orchestrate our absolute destruction. "Rowan? Do you need a glass of water?" Audrey asked, her voice softening slightly. I reached for the glass, feeling the cool condensation against my skin, grounding myself in the room. "No," I said, my voice hardening. "Add tortious interference and market manipulation to the complaint, Audrey. I want every asset she funneled into his accounts frozen by Friday." It was nearly seven in the evening when I took an Uber back to the brownstone in the West Village that Helena and I had shared for five years. I didn't want to step foot inside, but my father’s primary medical records and cardiac history files were stored in the safe in my dressing room. I needed those records to prove to the District Attorney that Ironclad’s home invasion directly triggered his cardiac arrest. I pushed open the heavy front door. The lights in the double-height living room were blazing. Sitting on the cream bouclé sofa was Eleanor Prescott, Helena’s mother, draped in a cashmere shawl. Tristan was standing beside her, carefully pouring hot water from an antique silver kettle into a porcelain cup. When I stepped into the foyer, Eleanor set her cup down on the saucer with a sharp, delicate clatter. "Look who finally decided to show his face," she said, her voice dripping with inherited condescension. "I thought you were busy playing the untouchable martyr out in the cold." She inspected me from head to toe, her thin lips curved in disdain. "Helena cuts off your luxury card for half a day, and you scurry straight back to the nest. You have no shame, Rowan. The Prescott family gave you an existence most men with your pedigree could only dream of. Instead of supporting Helena, you spend your days scheming against a brilliant boy like Tristan. Your father’s little workshop went bankrupt because he was incompetent. And now you expect Helena to foot the bill?" I didn't answer. I kept my eyes fixed ahead and walked toward the stairs. "Stop right there!" Eleanor’s voice cracked like a whip. "Did you lose your hearing along with your manners?" Tristan set down the kettle and rushed over, placing himself between me and the bottom step. "Rowan, please don't upset Mrs. Prescott," he pleaded softly, his eyes brimming with performative concern. "She came here out of the goodness of her heart to help resolve this." He picked up a legal document from the foyer console and held it out to me. "Helena and Mrs. Prescott went over this together," Tristan said. "If you sign this Voluntary Assignment of Intellectual Property and Release of Claims... Mrs. Prescott has agreed to write you a personal check for one hundred thousand dollars right now. So you can cover Arthur's hospital expenses." I looked down at the document. In plain, legal language, it required me to state that Tristan Cole was the sole, independent creator of the data optimization architecture, and that I relinquished all future claims against him, his venture, and Prescott Capital. "One hundred thousand dollars?" A dry, bitter laugh tore out of my throat. "The Prescott family’s generosity is truly breathtaking. A multi-million-dollar patent portfolio in exchange for pocket change." Eleanor rose from the sofa, smoothing her tailored trousers. "One hundred thousand dollars is more than your dignity is worth," she snapped. "If Tristan hadn't spent the last hour begging me to show you mercy, you wouldn't be seeing a single penny. Know your place, Rowan." I stared at her patrician, haughty face—the same face that had looked down at my father during our private wedding dinner seven years ago, treating him like an invisible member of the catering staff. "I won't sign," I said, my voice dead and quiet. I took a step to push past Tristan, but the front door swung open again. Helena stepped inside, shedding her trench coat. The moment she registered the tension in the room, her eyebrows drew together in immediate irritation. "What is happening here?" Tristan’s eyes instantly turned red. He retreated to Helena’s side like a frightened child seeking refuge. "Helena... Rowan won't listen to us. Your mother offered him money to help with his father’s hospital bills, and he... he said we were throwing scraps to a dog." Helena’s gaze pinned me to the floor, heavy with an exhaustion that was almost theatrical. "Rowan North. When does this pathetic melodrama end?" 4 Helena pinched the bridge of her nose, took three long strides across the foyer, and clamped her hand around my arm. Her fingers bit through the wool of my jacket with bruising force. "My mother and Tristan are trying to salvage your life, and you spit in their faces?" Her voice was low, furious, trembling with suppressed rage. "Your father is fighting for his life in a hospital ward, and you're standing here playing the proud aristocrat? Are you out of your mind?" I yanked my arm back violently, tearing out of her grasp. "Don't touch me," I said, staring directly into her eyes. "Keep your hundred thousand dollars, Helena. Use it to buy Tristan another custom tuxedo. Your money makes me sick." Slap! Eleanor slammed her open palm down onto the marble console table, rattling the crystal vases. "Insolent brat!" Eleanor hissed, her face flushed with fury. "Helena, do you see this? This is what happens when you marry a stray! I told you years ago that a man from that class would never have any breeding. He lives off your empire, and now he thinks he can bark at us in our own home!" Helena’s jaw clenched so tight the tendons stood out against her throat. Her eyes were black with fury. "Rowan. Apologize," she demanded. "Apologize to my mother, and apologize to Tristan." My shoulder throbbed where she had grabbed me, but my posture didn't yield an inch. "Not in this lifetime," I said. Helena stared at me, her chest heaving as she fought to keep her composure. "Fine," she said coldly. She let her hands fall to her sides, stepping back. "If you don't want the money, pack your bags and get out of this house tonight. There is no room in this family for an ungrateful parasite." She turned her back on me and looked at Tristan. "Tristan, call a moving crew tomorrow. Have them clear out the secondary suite on the second floor. Every single item he left behind goes straight to the curb." Tristan’s eyes flickered with unconcealed delight, though he quickly lowered his gaze and managed a troubled frown. "Helena... isn't that too harsh? Rowan is still your husband. If you throw him out tonight, where will he sleep?" "He can sleep under a bridge for all I care," Helena cut him off, her voice like cracking ice. "He brought this on himself." I gripped the banister, watching the three of them framed under the chandelier light. A profound, visceral nausea rolled through my gut. The air in this townhouse felt poisoned. Without a word, I turned and took the stairs two at a time. I went straight to my dressing room, opened the bottom compartment of the armoire, and pulled out my father’s comprehensive cardiology records, his medication history, and our bank correspondence from the week before. That was the only reason I had come back. I zipped the files into my bag and looked around the room. The linen curtains I had spent two weeks sourcing from Belgium. The wool rug I had chosen to match her favorite morning light. The fiddle-leaf fig in the corner that I had watered every Sunday morning for four years. It wasn't a home. It was a showroom for her ego. I left everything behind. I didn't pack a single shirt, a single watch, or a single pair of shoes. When I came back down the stairs with only the messenger bag across my chest, Helena was still standing in the center of the foyer, arms crossed, waiting for the surrender that always came after her ultimatums. Seeing the solitary bag, she let out a dry, scornful chuckle. "That's it? You're leaving your wardrobe so you have an excuse to come crawling back on Thursday?" I walked to the front door, slipped into my overcoat, and pulled the door open. "Don't waste money on a moving crew, Helena," I said, looking back at her over my shoulder. "Keep the clothes. Consider them an early wedding gift to the two of you." I paused, meeting her cold, bewildered eyes. "Make sure your attorney shows up on Friday." I walked out into the cool Manhattan night and didn't look back. Friday morning. Ten o’clock. New York County Supreme Court, Room 304. I sat at the plaintiff’s table. Audrey Shaw was beside me, neatly aligning two legal binders on the polished wood. The courtroom was almost silent, save for the rhythmic clicking of the court reporter’s machine. The bench was empty, the judge reviewing files in chambers. At three minutes past ten, the heavy double doors at the back swung open. Helena walked down the center aisle, her silver-grey bespoke wool suit cutting a sharp silhouette through the fluorescent lights. Behind her walked her senior corporate litigator, a man whose hourly rate exceeded my monthly mortgage payment. Slipping into the back row of the gallery, wearing dark designer sunglasses and a cashmere turtleneck, was Tristan Cole. Helena took her seat at the defense table. She didn't look at the bench; her gaze bore straight into me, a tight, condescending smirk playing at the edge of her lips. She leaned slightly across the aisle, keeping her voice low enough that only I could hear. "Have you had your fun, Rowan?" she murmured, shaking her head in pity. "I had to reschedule three executive committee meetings to sit through your little charade. I’m humoring you because I know you’re desperate. Withdraw the petition right now, walk out of here with me, and we can pretend this public embarrassment never happened." I stared at her face, searching for a single trace of the woman I thought I had married seven years ago. There was nothing left. Only a hollow shell driven by pride and control. "Helena," I said into the table microphone, my voice flat and deadened. "I'm not acting." The side door opened. The bailiff called out, "All rise." Judge Patricia Campbell took the bench, adjusted her glasses, and tapped her gavel once. "We are here in the matter of North v. Prescott. Counsel, let's hear the plaintiff's preliminary motions." I stood up before Audrey could speak. "Your Honor," I said clearly. "My first petition is for the immediate dissolution of marriage and an equitable division of marital assets under state domestic relations law." Across the aisle, Helena let out a quiet, derisive snort, her face practically shouting: Predictable. I didn't pause. "My second petition is a formal joinder and motion for an emergency evidentiary hearing against Prescott Capital for predatory market manipulation and tortious interference resulting in the wrongful insolvency of North Dynamics." Helena’s smirk froze. "And furthermore," I continued, turning slightly to point my finger directly at the man sitting in the back row of the gallery, "we are filing for an immediate criminal referral against Tristan Cole." Tristan’s head jerked up. "The charges," I said, my voice echoing off the paneled walls, "are trade secret theft, criminal conspiracy, and involuntary manslaughter." The courtroom fell into a shocked, suffocating stillness. Helena’s face drained of color. She shot up from her chair, her legal counsel frantically tugging at her sleeve. "Rowan North! Have you lost your mind?" she shouted, breaking all courtroom decorum. "Your Honor! This is blatant, malicious defamation! My husband is having a psychiatric break to extort my firm!" I didn't raise my voice. I didn't look at her. I reached down to Audrey’s binder, pulled out a laminated document stamped with the raised red seal of the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and laid it flat under the courtroom document projector. The image flickered onto the massive flat-screen monitors mounted on the courtroom walls. "This is the certified death certificate of my father, Arthur North," I said to the judge. "He died three nights ago in the emergency trauma bay. On the very night Helena froze my credit lines and demanded I crawl on my hands and knees to apologize to the man who hired the goons that killed him."