Chapter 5
Monday morning, I sat in my lawyer’s conference room, a thick stack of papers in front of me.
Divorce petition.
Restraining order applications for Linda, Ethan, and Ryan.
Evidence binders.
My lawyer, Mara, flipped through the last of the camera footage transcripts, nodding to herself.
“This is all rock solid,” she said. “The texts, the footage from the house, the casino records, Ryan’s criminal history. The judge will grant the permanent restraining orders without a second thought. And with the prenup and the trust, Ethan won’t get a dime from you in the divorce. Not the house. Not the cars. Not the money. Nothing.”
“Good,” I said.
I’d spent the weekend packing up everything Ethan owned, boxing it all up and stacking it in the garage.
The moving company had picked it up Saturday morning.
I’d changed all the locks again, just to be safe.
I hadn’t heard a word from any of them since the coffee shop.
Silence was usually a good sign.
But with that family…
Silence usually meant they were planning something worse.
Mara slid a sheet of paper across the table toward me.
“There’s one more thing we need to talk about,” she said. “Ryan’s main creditor. The guy he owes the most money to. A man named Leo Voss.”
I frowned.
“The private investigator mentioned him. Runs the sports book Ryan was working for, right?”
“Right,” Mara said. “And he’s not a small-time guy. He’s got ties to organized crime out of Newark. The police have been trying to build a case against him for years, but they’ve never been able to get anyone to testify against him. Everyone’s too scared.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because my office got a call from Voss’s lawyer this morning,” she said. “Voss wants to meet with you. Alone. No lawyers. No cops. He says he has information that will help your case against Ryan and the others. And he says he’s willing to testify against Ryan in court, if you agree to hear him out.”
I blinked.
“Why would he do that? Ryan owes him money. Wouldn’t he want Ryan to pay him back?”
“Voss found out Ryan was planning to skip town the second he got your money,” Mara said. “He was gonna leave Voss holding the bag. Voss doesn’t like being played. And he doesn’t like loose ends. If Ryan goes to prison for a few years, Voss gets to make an example out of him to all his other debtors. Win-win for him.”
“Is this safe?” I asked.
Mara leaned forward, her voice serious.
“I won’t lie to you. Voss is a dangerous man. But he’s also a businessman. He doesn’t gain anything by hurting you. Quite the opposite—if you help him take Ryan down, he saves face with his people. We’ll set the meeting in a public place. A busy restaurant in the middle of the day. Two off-duty police officers will be sitting at the next table, undercover, the whole time. You’ll have a wire on you. If anything goes even slightly wrong, they step in before he can blink. You’ll be completely safe.”
I thought about it.
Ryan had threatened me.
He’d said he’d take everything from me.
If Voss was willing to help put him away for good…
It was worth the risk.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
The meeting was set for 1 P.M. at a busy Italian restaurant downtown.
Mara wired me up with a tiny microphone hidden in the button of my coat before I went in.
The two undercover cops were already sitting at the table next to ours when I arrived, pretending to read menus.
Voss was already there.
He was older, late fifties, broad-shouldered, with a scar running down his left cheek and a thick gold chain around his neck.
He stood up when I approached, pulling out my chair for me like a gentleman.
“Mrs. Carter,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly. “Thank you for coming. I know this must be… unusual.”
“Sophia,” I said, sitting down. “And it is. Most people who want to help me don’t send their lawyers first.”
He smiled, a small, sharp thing.
“Fair enough. Let’s cut to the chase. Your brother-in-law, Ryan, owes me one point two million dollars. All gambling debts. All documented. He promised me he’d have it by last Friday. Then he told his friends at the casino he was gonna skip the country with your seven million and leave me high and dry.”
He slid a thick manila envelope across the table toward me.
“Inside that, you’ll find every record I have on him. Every bet. Every text. Every witness statement from people he’s scammed over the years. There’s enough in there to put him away for a minimum of eight years. Fraud. Illegal gambling. Racketeering. The works.”
I stared at the envelope.
“What do you want in return?”
“Two things,” he said, holding up two fingers. “First, you testify in court that you were present when Ryan admitted he was planning to flee the jurisdiction to avoid paying his debts. That’s all. Just tell the truth about what he said to you at your house.”
“Second?”
“Second,” he said, leaning forward, his voice dropping. “I need you to tell the judge that Ethan and Linda were in on Ryan’s sports book from the very beginning. They knew exactly what he was doing. They helped him launder the money through a fake landscaping company Ethan ran out of your garage three years ago. They took a 15% cut of every dollar he made.”
I froze.
I’d suspected Ethan was involved in Ryan’s garbage.
But Linda too?
And laundering money?
Out of my garage?
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I said.
He nodded at the envelope.
“All the bank records are in there. Deposits from Ryan’s customers going straight into Ethan’s personal account. Then withdrawals to Linda’s account every month for three years. You can cross-check them against your own bank records if you want. They’re real.”
I picked up the envelope, it was heavier than it looked.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why not just go to the cops yourself?”
He leaned back in his chair, picking up his glass of water.
“Because the cops don’t care about a bunch of rich people stealing from each other,” he said. “But a grieving daughter whose husband and in-laws tried to steal her dead mother’s money to pay off gambling debts? That’s front-page news. That’s the kind of case judges throw the book at people over. Ryan goes away for a long time. Your husband and his mother go down with him. I get my reputation back. Everyone wins. Except the Carters. But they never should have played with fire if they didn’t want to get burned.”
He stood up, tucking his napkin into his collar.
“I’ve already told the DA’s office I’m willing to testify. All you have to do is give the word. We take all three of them down together. Clean. Fast. No loose ends.”
He paused at the edge of the table.
“One last thing. They’re planning to file a lawsuit against you tomorrow. Claiming you coerced Ethan into signing the prenup, that the trust is a fraudulent transfer meant to defraud legitimate family creditors. They’ve got a sleazy lawyer who specializes in making rich people look like villains. It won’t work, not with the evidence we’ve got, but it’ll drag the whole thing out for months. Maybe years. Unless we hit first.”
He nodded at the envelope in my hand.
“Give Mara everything in there by 5 P.M. today. We file our criminal complaint before they can file their civil one. We set the narrative. We win before they even know the game has started.”
He turned to walk away.
“Wait,” I said.
He stopped.
“Why should I trust you?” I asked. “You’re a criminal. You run illegal gambling rings. You could be lying about all of this just to get to Ryan.”
He looked at me, his dark eyes steady.
“Because my mother was a single mom, too,” he said, quiet enough only I could hear. “She worked three jobs to raise me and my sister. Died of a heart attack when I was 16, same as yours. Worked herself to death. I know exactly what that seven million dollars means to you. Every dollar is blood, sweat, and tears. No one gets to take that away from you. Not my debtors. Not your scumbag in-laws. No one.”
He walked away before I could say anything else.
I sat there for a long minute, staring at the envelope in my hand.
Everything I needed to end this.
Once and for all.
I pulled out my phone, calling Mara.
She answered on the first ring.
May you like
“Everything okay?”
“More than okay,” I said, standing up, tucking the envelope into my bag. “Get the DA on the phone. We’re filing first. And we’re not holding anything back.”
