Chapter 7: Minnesota Ties!
400 Words
The summons arrived the next morning, slipped into her office inbox by a courier who couldn’t have guessed its weight. Ismene opened it with a lawyer’s instinctive calm, eyes scanning the letterhead before her stomach dropped.
Filed in Hennepin County, Minnesota.
Jared had moved first.
Her pulse quickened as she read the details. He’d filed a petition to shift proceedings to the United States, citing residency, shared property, and financial ties rooted in his home state. It was a tactical move—a clever one—and it meant she might have to fight him on his turf.
Minnesota.
The word carried a sting of nostalgia. She had lived there for stretches of their marriage, commuting between continents, trying to make their bi-continental life seamless. Jared’s family still lived there. His old law school friends, his business partners, the network of allies who would protect him.
It wasn’t just a jurisdictional challenge. It was a battlefield designed for him to win.
She stood abruptly, pacing her office. This was more than betrayal; it was strategy. He wasn’t just walking away from their marriage—he was maneuvering to crush her in court.
Her phone rang. Amina’s name lit the screen.
“You’ve seen it?” Amina’s voice was tight.
“Yes.”
“Classic Jared. He’s playing home-field advantage. If he gets Minnesota, he controls the narrative. Judges there know him, or know of him. He’ll spin the immigrant-wife angle until it bleeds sympathy.”
Ismene clenched her jaw. “I’m not some foreigner to be pitied. I’m his equal—and I’ll prove it.”
Amina sighed. “You’ll need counsel admitted in Minnesota if this sticks. Don’t even think about flying solo.”
But the very thought of handing her fate to another lawyer made Ismene bristle. The idea of sitting silently at a table while someone else argued for her, while Jared smirked from across the aisle—it was unbearable.
She looked out the window, rain streaking against the glass. Melbourne felt suddenly small, like a stage she no longer controlled. Minnesota loomed across the ocean, a foreign court with rules she knew but terrain she didn’t own.
Still, something in her sharpened at the challenge. If Jared thought he could corner her, he had forgotten who she was.
She whispered it aloud, steady and cold: “You want a fight, Jared? You’ll get one.”
- Writer
