Chapter 9
We didn’t sleep that night.
We worked out of the FBI’s downtown field office. A team of agents prepped Evan—coached him on his lines, fitted him with a hidden microphone and camera, ran through every possible reaction Victoria might have.
I sat in the observation room, watching through the one-way mirror. Evan looked terrible—pale, exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed. But every time he practiced his lines, he got a little better. A little more convincing.
At six in the morning, Agent Carter came in with coffee.
“The judge signed the order,” she said. “We have permission to bring Victoria to an interview room at nine. We’ll have thirty minutes. No more. If she doesn’t give up the password in that time, we move to Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?” my father asked.
“Breach the vault,” she said. “The foundation building has state-of-the-art security. Motion sensors. Pressure plates. Armed guards. We can get in, but it’ll take time. And if we trip any alarms, the server auto-destroys. Everything is lost. Plan A is definitely better.”
At eight forty-five, we drove to the jail.
Evan wore a dark suit. I wore a simple black dress—nothing flashy, nothing that would give Victoria the satisfaction of thinking I was enjoying myself. We were led to a small interview room with a metal table and four plastic chairs. The walls were concrete. The air smelled like disinfectant and despair.
At nine o’clock exactly, the door opened.
Victoria was led in by two guards. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun. No makeup. No diamonds. She looked like an entirely different woman.
But her eyes were the same.
Cold. Calculating. Furious.
The guards cuffed her to the table and left.
She looked at Evan first. Her expression softened—just a little.
“Baby,” she said. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you? I told them you had nothing to do with any of this—”
Then she saw me.
The softness vanished.
“You,” she spat. “What are you doing here? This is family business.”
“I’m here because your son asked me to be,” I said. “He needs your help, Victoria. And whether you want to admit it or not, you need ours.”
She laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound.
“I need help from the little gold-digger who destroyed my life? I don’t think so. You’ve taken everything from me, Lily. My home. My money. My freedom. What more could you possibly want?”
“Your password,” Evan said.
The room went silent.
Victoria’s head snapped toward him. “What did you say?”
Evan’s hands were shaking under the table. But his voice was steady—exactly as they’d practiced.
“The dead man’s switch, Mom,” he said. “I know about it. I found the USB drive. I read the files. If that server sends those documents in thirty-something hours, I’m going to prison. For twenty years. Maybe more. All the deals I helped you with. All the transfers. All the lies. My name is on every single one.”
He leaned forward across the table.
“I’m your son, Mom. Your firstborn. You told me I was the only thing that ever mattered to you. Are you really going to let me rot in a cell because you’re too proud to type in a password?”
Victoria stared at him.
For the first time, I saw real uncertainty in her face.
“Evan,” she said slowly. “Those files… they won’t hurt you. I made sure of it. I redacted everything—”
“You didn’t redact enough!” Evan shouted, slamming his hand on the table. “The FBI already has the USB! They’re going through it right now! The only way to stop them is to abort the transfer. If the public sees those files before the FBI can sanitize them, it’s over. No deals. No immunity. Nothing. I go away forever.”
He was crying now. Real tears. Not acting.
“Please, Mom,” he whispered. “I’m begging you. Give me the password. Save me.”
Victoria looked at him. She looked at me. Her mind was working—calculating, weighing, second-guessing.
“If I give you the password,” she said, her voice dangerously low, “you have to promise me something.”
“Anything,” Evan said.
“You get me out of here,” she said. “You sell everything that’s left. You get me a private jet. You take me somewhere they’ll never find me. And you never see her again.” She nodded at me. “Ever.”
Evan didn’t hesitate.
“I promise,” he said.
Victoria stared at him for another long moment. Then she nodded.
“Write this down,” she said.
She spelled out the password, letter by letter, number by number. Evan wrote it on a notepad, his hand shaking.
“And the biometrics?” he said.
“I already gave the FBI my prints and retinal scan an hour ago,” she said. “Standard booking procedure. They have everything they need.”
She smiled. It was the first genuine smile I’d seen from her all night.
“Now, Evan,” she said. “Untie me. Let’s go home.”
Evan stood up.
He slid the notepad across the table to me.
Then he looked at his mother.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said quietly.
The smile died on Victoria’s face.
“What?”
“I promised I’d get you out,” Evan said. “I didn’t say when. And I didn’t say how. But you’re going to stay right here, Mom. Where you belong. And you’re going to stand trial for everything you’ve done. For Dad. For Lily’s mother. For every person you ever hurt.”
Victoria’s mouth opened and closed. She looked at me. I held up the notepad with the password.
“Thank you, Victoria,” I said. “You’ve just saved a lot of innocent people. Including your son.”
I stood up to leave.
“You think you’ve won?” Victoria shrieked, pulling against the cuffs. “You think this is over? I have friends! People who owe me favors! I’ll be out in a week! And when I get out, I’m going to—”
“You’re not getting out,” Agent Carter said, opening the door. “The evidence we now have thanks to your son is more than enough to put you away for the rest of your natural life. No judge will grant you bail. No jury will acquit. You’re done, Victoria.”
She signaled to the guards.
“Take her back to her cell.”
As the guards led her out, Victoria fought and screamed every step of the way. She cursed Evan. She cursed me. She cursed the entire world.
May you like
But none of it mattered.
It was over.
