Divorced! Now what?
Chapter 88

Third POV

Bret had not been himself since Bethany had left him. The first shock he received was when the credit card failed, and he phoned Bethany and lied about where he was. The clerk had made him use his own card to pay the bill, and Cynthia refused to put her hand in her purse and help him out. The next shock was being locked out of the home, and replaceing another man had purchased it so quickly blew his mind; the police were brought in and ordered him away. He discovered his belongings there when he reached Cynthia's place to talk to her. His lawyer showed him the video, which clearly showed what had happened, and he could not deny it.

At first, he was angry and believed every nasty thing Cynthia said. He lost his temper, ranted, and raved for days until Cynthia said something that pulled him up.

Cynthia said he never really had a good marriage, that Bethany had used him, and that he had most likely been seeing other guys behind his back.

That was the moment my eyes opened. Bethany was a good wife. She never complained and never put her family or him down. If anything, Bethany always tried to encourage him to pursue things that made him happy, if only she knew what he was doing behind her back. He felt ashamed now and wished he could change it all. Maybe if he could do what the police wanted him to do, it might make up a little of the hurt he put her through.

Yes, it had been fun with Cynthia and spending Bethany's money like water for a while. He loved all the weddings he attended, either as the groom or as the best man, and how it made him feel special each time as much as Cynthia did. The police told him the weddings were part of a larger scam, using them to hide a money laundering scheme.

Bret did not realize what he had with Bethany until Bethany divorced him, how easy and less demanding she had made his life. He lived in a lovely, warm home, was greeted with a smile, never demanding anything from him, and accepted whatever little he gave her in response.

He was happy and content with her.

Thinking back, Bret could not remember the last time he made love to his wife, but he could remember every time he was with Cynthia throughout their marriage, and before they were married.

Cynthia had been his life all through college. They were together till last year, when her grandmother died, and the inheritance was divided up. That was when she convinced Bret to start dating Bethany, and Cynthia had made what they were doing to Bethany seem right. Cynthia was very good at making things sound right, saying that the inheritance was wrongly divided and that Bethany took a large part of her share. The only way to get it back was for Bret to marry Bethany and spend Bethany's money on Cynthia. Finding out that Bret was never married to Bethany later was heartbreaking and crushed him harder than he thought possible. Bret said he never would have married Bethany had he known that the marriage he had with Cynthia during a drunken visit to Las Vegas was real. As per Cynthia's insistence, Bret said he would never have pursued Bethany.

Cynthia has been so demanding, and he is having a little trouble getting the information the police want from her. Bret had searched Cynthia's home for any clue or paperwork left behind. Still, Cynthia is the worst housekeeper, and she puts anything the maid replaces in a box, so several boxes with papers are taken forever to sort through. Bret feels trapped with Cynthia, who he now sees as a selfish, demanding woman. I want to divorce her, but the police say to wait till she is in jail. The divorce would be more uncomplicated. The police arrested a lot of people. Somehow, they were connected to Cynthia and her mother. It was a colossal bust, including money laundering, and lots of fraud, protection rackets, and even some high-up men were involved. It seemed that whatever they were doing involved not just our local people but some criminals from another country who were invited to come over and try to take over our city. Bret was supposed to replace more incriminating evidence, so he had no idea where to look next. Cynthia is very good at hiding stuff, even though she is terrible at looking after the home.

Wendy sold the holiday home that Bob left her, and moved in with Cynthia and Bret after they were released from police custody on bail. Both Cynthia and she decided to lay low for a while and look like a normal mother and daughter home. Bret was having trouble being around the two of them; he had to put on a happy face, but even making love to Cynthia seemed to be more a chore and a quick release than the fun it was before. Everything was falling apart. Cynthia took up complaining even more than ever and was taking more and more days off work, while Bret was doing the opposite, working longer hours and chasing more contracts. He was not happy at all about being at home and was looking for somewhere else to live. His only dilemma about moving was one that it would be challenging to get the information he was chasing, and two, if he were going to prison for bigamy, it would be a waste of getting somewhere else to live. Cynthia let slip that Bethany had been in a car accident, but he could not replace out what hospital she had been taken to, and Cynthia was suddenly tight-lipped about it. You could see she was hiding something, and he could not coax it out of her. He had taken up bugging the house, hoping to hear her talking to Wendy about it, but he had had no luck so far.

The other woman in the little club blamed Cynthia for the fallout, saying she was getting greedy and taking an extra two days' holiday to earn more money because she wanted a new car.

The woman had met without Cynthia and Wendy to discuss the two of them, and they all wanted out. Before the police found out any more, they needed to distance themselves from those two. It would be easy since they only met twice a year; all other contact was done through Zoom. They discussed how to move all the blame onto them and make it clear that they were only following their orders, and if they needed to, they would confess to the police how they had been blackmailing them into doing what they were doing. They talked about different ways to protect their own skins and make deals with the police if it came down to it.

Lucky for them, they had not been as greedy as the other two. They had saved all the money they made and put it in an offshore account so it could not be traced.

Their husbands were shocked when they were arrested and had to explain the best they could why they were arrested, and that was the beginning of sending all the blame to Wendy and then to Cynthia. They were not going to go down as hard as those two if they could help it. All the contact with the other people involved in the racket was all through Wendy. She was the one who originally started it all, and it grew to the size of her greed. Most of the brides were Wendy and Cynthia; the others only wed twice a year when they would meet up, and that was only to influential men whom they could blackmail later.