Chapter 6 - The Anatomy of a Parasite
There was a choked, strangled sound on the other end of the line.
“You… you think you’re smart, don’t you?” Marjorie hissed, her voice trembling with venom. “You played my son! You hid your money like a snake in the grass! You let us think you were a nobody! If Derek hit you, it’s because you deserved it! A wife doesn't deceive her husband!”
“Marjorie,” I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “I hid my money because I wanted to know if your son loved me for who I was, or if he was just another parasite looking for a free ride.”
“He is a good boy! He took you in!”
“He took me in because he thought I was too weak to fight back,” I replied. “He thought that by humiliating me on my wedding night, he and his mother could break my spirit and turn me into an unpaid servant. But let me ask you a question, Marjorie: did Derek tell you about the bridge loan?”
A dead silence fell over the line.
“What… what bridge loan?” she asked, a sudden tremor of fear cracking her screeching tone.
“The bridge loan for Apex Dynamics,” I said smoothly. “The two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar predatory loan he took out last month to pay for his bespoke suits, his rented car, and that pathetic wedding reception where your family drank cheap bourbon.”
“He… he told me it was an investment,” she stammered. “He said Northstar was giving him six million dollars today!”
“Northstar rejected him. His company is dead. And because he defaulted, the private lender has initiated foreclosure proceedings on your house on South Broad Street. The process server should be ringing your doorbell in about twenty minutes.”
“No… no, that’s my house! My husband left me that house! Derek wouldn't do that!”
“Derek forged your secondary income verification on the application, Marjorie. But you signed the deed of trust with your own hand. You traded your home so your son could pretend to be a mogul.”
“Brynn! Please!” Marjorie’s voice suddenly devolved into a pathetic, desperate wail. The haughty matriarch vanished, replaced by a terrified old woman realizing the abyss had opened beneath her feet. “You have billions! What is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to you? It’s pocket change! Pay the lender! For the love of God, I’m an old woman! You can’t let them throw me into the street!”
I looked out the panoramic window of my office. Below, the city of Philadelphia was glowing in the dusk, millions of lights spreading out toward the horizon.
“When I was sitting on your floor in my wedding dress, Marjorie,” I said softly, “bleeding from my lip, begging you and your son to treat me with basic human decency, what did you say to me?”
Marjorie was sobbing now, heavy, ugly gasps. “I… I was just…”
“You told me that when my money ran out, I shouldn't bother coming back unless I was ready to apologize on my knees.”
I paused, letting the memory hang between us like an executioner’s axe.
“My money hasn't run out, Marjorie. But yours has. Do not call this number again.”
I ended the call and blocked the number.
Julian looked at me, raising an eyebrow. “Cold.”
“Accurate,” I replied.
Over the next seventy-two hours, the legal machine moved with devastating efficiency.
Because of the overwhelming forensic evidence—the medical evaluation, the hallway recording, and Derek’s spontaneous admissions in the Northstar boardroom witnessed by eight high-profile corporate executives—the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office upgraded Derek’s charges to aggravated assault and felony corporate fraud.
His bail was revoked entirely when the SEC formally launched an investigation into Apex Dynamics' fraudulent software claims.
Meanwhile, Julian Croft filed for an emergency annulment on my behalf in the Court of Common Pleas.
Under Pennsylvania law, fraud going to the very essence of the marriage—specifically, financial deceit coupled with immediate physical violence designed to coerce servitude—is grounds for declaring a marriage void *ab initio*. As far as the law was concerned, Derek Halston and I had never been married.
On Friday morning, five days after the wedding that never was, I received a visit from Detective Miller.
He sat across from my desk at Northstar, placing a clear plastic evidence bag on the mahogany wood. Inside was the cheap silver wedding band I had left on Marjorie’s hallway table.
“The Halston house was foreclosed on yesterday afternoon,” Miller told me. “The mother is staying at a budget motel near the airport, paid for by the church. When the sheriff’s deputies cleared the property, they found this on the table. Derek’s public defender requested it be returned to you.”
I looked at the ring. It was made of stainless steel and cubic zirconia. Derek had told me it was platinum and diamonds, purchased with three months of his hard-earned savings. Another lie in a mountain of fabrications.
“Keep it,” I said to the detective. “Or drop it in a collection bin. It has no value to me.”
Detective Miller nodded slowly, pocketing the bag. “He broke down during his arraignment this morning, Ms. Calloway. Begged the judge to let him speak to you. Kept crying that you were his wife, that he was sorry, that he’d do whatever you wanted.”
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“He isn't sorry he hurt me, Detective,” I said, signing the last document on my desk. “He’s sorry he discovered who I was too late.”
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