The scariest moment isn’t hearing, I want a divorce.
It’s hearing, You’ll get zero dollars.
Spoken with the same calm you’d use to mention rain in the forecast.
I was in my kitchen with flour on my hands, halfway through making biscuits I didn’t even want, listening to my husband plan to erase me like a spreadsheet row. Like I wasn’t a person—just a line item he could delete to improve margins.
My name is Maisie Wallace. I’m thirty-seven, and my entire career at Iron Leaf Logistics Group has been built on one principle:
Predict the failure point before the system breaks.
I do supply chains. I map routes. I hunt bottlenecks. I fix problems before cargo even gets loaded. I live in KPIs and contingency plans. I’m the woman who keeps a spare tire, a jump battery, a flashlight, and a printed copy of insurance in the glove box because apps die when you need them most.
And yet, standing in the hallway of my own home—gripping a mixing bowl like it could keep me upright—I realized I’d missed the most obvious failure point in my life.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, just after four.
My husband, Caleb Ror, was in his home office. The door was slightly ajar. Caleb was a “consultant” in the way some men are “visionaries”: he spoke a dialect of confidence and leverage designed to make other people feel lucky to give him their money. Real estate investments. Private deals. Terms that sounded expensive even when they meant nothing.
Usually, when he was on a call, I walked past on my toes, careful not to interrupt the genius at work.
But today his voice was different.
Not his persuasive voice.
His disposal voice.
“Prepare the divorce papers,” Caleb said.
I froze so hard the house seemed to freeze with me. The hallway air turned thin, like someone had stolen half the oxygen.
“No, don’t worry about her,” he continued, smooth and detached—like he was ordering printer toner. “She’ll get zero. Make sure the language is clear. Total asset protection.”
Zero.
He said it like it was obvious. Like it wasn’t a sentence that would split my life clean down the middle.
I waited for my body to react with something dramatic—anger, tears, collapse.
It didn’t.
Instead, a cold mechanical clarity washed over me, the same one I felt when a shipment went missing and the clock started ticking. When a crisis hits, you don’t cry first.
You assess.
Caleb paused, listening to whoever was on the other end. Then he said, “I know the timeline. The bank is okay with it. Just get it done before the first of the month.”
That detail snagged in my brain like a fishhook.
The bank is okay with it.
We had three joint accounts at a major national bank. Why would a bank need to be “okay” with a divorce?
Banks don’t approve divorces.
Judges do.
Unless he wasn’t talking about the divorce filing.
Unless he was talking about moving something that required institutional permission.
The office door clicked open.
I didn’t have time to move.
Caleb stepped out, headset around his neck, looking fresh and untroubled. Forty years old, hair always exactly the right kind of messy, like he paid someone to make it look like he didn’t.
He saw me.
Saw the flour on my hands.
And he didn’t even flinch.
No guilt.
No panic.
Just annoyance that the conversation had to happen earlier than scheduled.
“I assume you heard,” he said, walking past me toward the kitchen.
“I heard you say zero,” I replied, shocked by how steady my voice sounded.
Caleb opened the fridge, grabbed sparkling water, and cracked it like this was just another Tuesday.
“I’m going to be direct with you, Maisie. It’s over. It’s been over for a long time. I’ve outgrown this dynamic.” He took a sip and leaned against the granite island—the granite island he reminded me, often, that he paid for. “And as for money, I want to set expectations now so you don’t waste money on lawyers you can’t afford. You get nothing. The prenup is ironclad.”
He said ironclad like he was proud of it. Like it was proof he’d been smarter than me all along.
“I built this life, Maisie,” he continued, his smile pitying. “I built the portfolio. You have your little salary at the logistics firm. You’ll be fine. But don’t think you’re taking a piece of my empire just because you slept in my bed.”
For a second, the urge to throw the mixing bowl at his head was a physical ache in my shoulder.
Instead, I looked around the kitchen.
It was pristine. White marble, brushed gold fixtures, appliances that cost more than my first car. Caleb loved this house because it was a monument to himself.
And in that moment, I realized I was part of the décor.
Aesthetic maintenance.
A fixture he was renovating out.
“Okay,” I said.
Caleb blinked.
He’d expected a scene. He’d prepared for tears, bargaining, a collapse. He wasn’t ready for logistics.
“Okay?” he repeated, frowning.
“If you want a divorce, I can’t stop you,” I said, setting the bowl down on the counter because I needed my hands free. “We’ll let the lawyers handle the prenup.”
“There’s nothing to handle,” he snapped, a crack in his composure. “It’s black and white. You walk away with what you came in with—which, if I recall, was debt and a Honda.”
He pushed off the counter and headed back to his office.
“I have a dinner meeting at seven,” he added over his shoulder. “Don’t wait up.”
The door latched with a click that sounded like something locking.
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