Chapter 6 - The Trap Marcus Set
Marcus walked into the dining room like a condemned man walking toward the gallows. Chloe followed closely behind him, her face a storm of rage, embarrassment, and calculating suspicion. The other guests slowly trickled in, taking their seats in total silence, unwilling to leave before seeing how this high-stakes confrontation would end.
As the servers nervously poured sparkling water and wine, Marcus sat down opposite me. The sweat on his brow had soaked through his collar.
"Why did you really come here, Kesha?" Marcus hissed, keeping his voice low as he leaned across the table. "You didn't come to eat turkey. You came here to humiliate me in front of Chloe and her family."
"Humiliate you?" I laughed softly, taking a delicate sip of water. "Marcus, you invited me. Did you think I forgot the wording of your text? 'The family wants to see you one last time.' Tell the room, Marcus. Why did you send that text yesterday?"
Marcus clamped his mouth shut.
"He won't tell you, so allow me to enlighten your guests," I said, addressing the table. "Marcus believed I was living in poverty. He knew that Reynolds Logistics was facing a catastrophic audit next month. He invited me here today because his legal team discovered an old clause in our original divorce paperwork."
Chloe snapped her head toward Marcus. "What clause?!"
"When Marcus divorced me eight years ago," I explained calmly, "he made me sign a rushed boilerplate agreement surrendering all claims to his personal assets. However, because he hid several offshore holding accounts during the proceedings to avoid paying taxes, the divorce settlement contained a fatal legal loophole: if fraud was committed during disclosure, any future intellectual property or business ventures created during the marriage could be contested."
I looked directly into Marcus’s terrified eyes.
"Marcus found out two weeks ago that the core routing algorithm his company has been using for the past five years—the one he claimed he invented—was actually written by me on my old laptop while we were still married. If I sued him for patent theft, his company would collapse overnight. He invited me here today to offer me a pathetic fifty-thousand-dollar 'charity settlement' in exchange for signing away my patent rights before his wedding to Chloe."
The table gasped.
"You... you stole your ex-wife's intellectual property?" Arthur Pendelton asked, his voice dripping with disgust. "Marcus, you told the board that algorithm was developed by your German engineering team!"
"It was a collaborative effort!" Marcus yelled defensively, slamming his hand on the table. "She was my wife! What was hers was mine!"
"Except you threw her out on the street the moment she got pregnant," Noah remarked calmly, cutting a piece of roasted potato with perfect table manners. "Under United States intellectual property law, marriage does not grant automatic assignment of independently created software patents without an explicit written transfer agreement. You have no legal claim, sir."
May you like
Marcus stared at his eight-year-old son, his chest heaving with impotent rage. "Will someone shut this kid up?!"
"Do not raise your voice at my brother," Olivia said firmly, setting her fork down and glaring at Marcus with the exact same fierce intensity I possessed. "You are not our father. You are just a man who made bad choices."
