Chapter 8 - The Deal With Eric
The company was called Dawson Strategic Consulting.
It had no office.
No employees.
No clients.
It was created six weeks before Eric left me.
Margaret placed the phone on speaker.
Her attorney read the transaction dates.
The first payment came when I was five months pregnant.
The second arrived three days after Eric changed the locks.
The final transfer was the $62,000 payment made two weeks before Thanksgiving.
I looked at Patricia.
“You paid him to leave me.”
She shook her head.
“It was not like that.”
“What was it like?”
“He threatened to expose the trust.”
“Why would that matter if you were acting legally?”
She did not answer.
Robert said, “Patricia, tell her.”
Patricia rounded on him.
“You took the money too.”
“And I was wrong.”
“You signed the transfers.”
“I didn’t arrange her marriage.”
The room went silent.
I stared at my uncle.
“What did you say?”
Robert’s face went gray.
Patricia stepped toward him.
Margaret blocked her.
Robert looked at me.
“Eric met Patricia before he met you.”
My body felt numb.
“How long before?”
“About eight months.”
Patricia found Eric through a business contact.
She knew I would gain control of my mother’s trust at twenty-five.
She feared I would ask questions about earlier withdrawals.
So she introduced me to a man willing to keep me distracted and financially dependent.
Eric acted charming.
He encouraged me to distance myself from Margaret.
He told me the family resented my mother.
He rushed the marriage.
Then he convinced me to let Patricia continue managing the trust because investments were complicated.
I had not known the trust existed, but Eric had.
His job was to prevent me from looking for it.
When I became pregnant, he demanded more money.
He threatened to tell me everything.
Patricia paid him.
Then he abandoned me because he believed the final payment ended the arrangement.
I thought about every anniversary.
Every promise.
Every night I apologized for being difficult.
My marriage had begun as a business transaction between my aunt and the man who later abused me.
Lily shifted against my chest.
The realization cut through the numbness.
Eric had not just used me.
He had a legal connection to my child.
And Patricia had continued paying him.
“Why the last sixty-two thousand?” Margaret asked.
Patricia finally sat down.
“Because he wanted custody.”
My blood turned cold.
“He what?”
“He said if I didn’t pay, he would file for full custody and reveal everything.”
Margaret’s voice became lethal.
“And you paid him rather than tell her?”
Patricia looked at me.
“I thought he would go away.”
My phone rang inside my handbag.
The caller was unknown.
I answered.
Eric’s voice came through.
May you like
“I’m outside.”
👉 Patricia had invited the man who abandoned me to Thanksgiving—and he believed he was leaving with Lily.
