Chapter 4
Marcus arrived ten minutes later.
He was in sweatpants and a hoodie, his hair sticking up, but he carried a briefcase that looked like it held enough legal firepower to take down a small country.
I poured him coffee.
Then I showed him the recording.
He watched the whole thing in silence.
When it ended, he looked up at me.
His face was like stone.
“I want everything,” I said. “Every transaction. Every email. Every text message. Every person who helped her.”
Marcus nodded.
“I’ll have my team on it by morning,” he said. “But Daniel… you should know what you’re asking for. This is going to get ugly. She’s going to fight back. She’s going to say things about your mother. About you.”
“I don’t care,” I said.
“Let her try.”
My mother was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, watching us.
Marcus looked at her.
Then he looked back at me.
“There’s something else,” he said quietly. “Something I found last week, when I was doing a routine check on your accounts before the wedding.”
He opened his briefcase.
Pulled out a file.
Slid it across the table.
I opened it.
And felt my blood run cold.
“Vanessa has been transferring money to an offshore account,” Marcus said. “Small amounts at first, then larger ones. Over the past six months, she’s moved almost two million dollars.”
I stared at the numbers.
“Two million,” I repeated.
“That’s just what we can trace,” Marcus said. “There’s probably more. And she’s not the only one receiving it.”
He pointed to a name on the list.
Richard Voss.
“Who is that?” I said.
“Her brother,” Marcus said. “He’s been getting regular payments. And there’s another name.”
He pointed lower.
Sofia Bennett.
“Her mother,” I said.
“Also receiving payments,” Marcus said. “And there’s one more.”
He pointed to the last name.
My hand tightened around the file.
Ethan Clarke.
“Who is that?” I said, though I already had a sick feeling I knew.
Marcus hesitated.
“Your CFO,” he said.
I closed my eyes.
Ethan.
The man I had hired straight out of college.
The man I had mentored.
The man who had been the best man at my wedding that never would be.
“He’s been helping her,” Marcus said. “Giving her access to accounts she shouldn’t have had. Falsifying records to cover the withdrawals.”
I stood up.
Walked to the window.
The rain was starting to slow.
Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked.
“Ethan,” I said, more to myself than anyone.
“I trusted him.”
“People do stupid things for money,” Marcus said. “Or for people they think love them.”
I turned around.
“What do you mean?”
Marcus sighed.
“There’s more,” he said. “My team found hotel receipts. Restaurant reservations. Travel bookings. All under Ethan’s name, but charged to your accounts. And always with a second person.”
He slid another piece of paper across the table.
A credit card receipt from a hotel in Paris.
Two names.
Ethan Clarke.
Vanessa Hart.
I felt the room spin.
They were having an affair.
Vanessa wasn’t just stealing from me.
She was sleeping with my best friend.
And together, they were planning to take everything.
The company.
The money.
My mother’s freedom.
Everything.
I looked at the receipt.
At the date.
It was from three months ago.
The same weekend I had told Vanessa I was going to Tokyo for business.
The same weekend she had told me she was visiting her sick grandmother.
They had been in Paris together.
Spending my money.
Laughing at me.
Planning my destruction.
I felt something inside me snap.
Not in a screaming, breaking-things kind of way.
In a cold, clear, final kind of way.
“Get it all,” I said to Marcus.
My voice was steady.
Deadly steady.
“Every email. Every text. Every hotel receipt. Every bank transfer. I want every single piece of evidence that exists.”
Marcus nodded.
“I’ll have it all within forty-eight hours,” he said.
“And then?”
“And then,” I said, “we destroy them.”
I walked over to my mother.
She was watching me with worried eyes.
I knelt in front of her.
Took her hands in mine.
“Mom,” I said. “I need you to tell me everything. Every time she threatened you. Every time she stole something. Every person who helped her. Can you do that?”
She looked at me.
Then she nodded.
And for the next two hours, she talked.
She told me about the first time Vanessa had raised her voice.
About the day she had found Vanessa going through her jewelry box.
About the threats.
The manipulation.
The way Vanessa had slowly, carefully cut her off from everyone she knew—her friends, her bridge club, even her own sister.
By the time she finished, the sun was starting to come up.
My mother was exhausted.
I helped her to her room.
Tucked her in.
Sat with her until she fell asleep.
Then I went back downstairs.
Marcus was still there, typing furiously on his laptop.
James was at the door, talking quietly on his phone.
I poured myself another cup of coffee.
Black.
Bitter.
I looked out the window at the rising sun.
May you like
It was going to be a beautiful day.
And for Vanessa and everyone who had helped her, it was going to be the last beautiful day they had for a very long time.
