Chapter 4 - The Other WomanVictor did not move.
He took me to a private medical clinic owned by the Marlowe Trust.
By midnight, my cuts were cleaned, my wrist was wrapped, and a doctor confirmed that nothing was broken.
The injuries would heal.
The humiliation would take longer.
Victor sat across from me in a quiet recovery suite while rain tapped against the windows.
“You should have called sooner,” he said.
“I know.”
“You stopped responding to my messages four years ago.”
“I wanted a normal life.”
“And did you get one?”
I looked away.
He did not press.
That was why I had always trusted Victor.
He had spent forty years protecting my grandfather’s interests, then my mother’s, then mine.
He never confused protection with ownership.
Grant did.
Victor slid a tablet across the table.
“The preliminary review is already showing irregularities.”
I looked at the screen.
Transfers.
Shell companies.
Loans.
Charitable disbursements.
The numbers were enormous.
“How long?”
“At least seven years. Possibly longer.”
“Grant?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Did he steal from the foundation?”
Victor hesitated.
“That transfer was authorized through a company registered to someone very close to him.”
“Who?”
He tapped the screen.
A name appeared.
Lydia Cross.
I stared at it.
I knew Lydia.
Everyone in Palm Beach knew Lydia.
She ran a luxury branding company, attended every major charity event, and had spent the last two years appearing in photographs three feet from my husband.
Grant always described her as a family friend.
I had believed him longer than I should have.
“His mistress?”
“We haven’t confirmed that.”
“I have.”
Victor studied me.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“And stayed?”
The question contained no judgment.
That made it hurt more.
“I kept thinking marriage meant surviving difficult seasons.”
Victor leaned back.
“Sometimes it means recognizing when the season is the marriage.”
I nodded.
At one in the morning, my phone began vibrating.
Grant.
Celeste.
Madison.
Harrison.
Grant again.
Then an unfamiliar number.
I ignored all of them until a message appeared.
You’re making a mistake. He isn’t who you think he is. Ask Victor about June 1996. —Harrison
I showed Victor.
For the first time all night, his expression changed.
“What happened in June 1996?”
He looked toward the rain.
“Your grandfather saved Harrison Whitmore.”
“I know that.”
“That isn’t the whole story.”
“Then tell me.”
Victor remained silent for several seconds.
“Tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Elena—”
“No more family secrets. Not theirs. Not mine.”
He looked back at me.
“Fair enough.”
He folded his hands.
“In 1996, Samuel discovered Harrison had been using political connections to acquire condemned properties before redevelopment announcements became public.”
“Insider dealing?”
“Something similar. Difficult to prove then. Samuel believed Harrison could be redirected.”
“My grandfather trusted him?”
“He believed people deserved one opportunity to become better than their worst decision.”
“And Harrison?”
“Used that generosity.”
Victor stood and walked toward the window.
“Samuel invested because Harrison promised to rebuild neglected neighborhoods responsibly. For the first five years, he did.”
“What changed?”
“Money.”
That answer needed no explanation.
Victor turned.
“When Samuel became ill, Harrison began restructuring subsidiaries. Your grandfather suspected he was trying to bury Marlowe ownership.”
“Did he?”
“No. I stopped him.”
That explained the fear.
Not entirely.
But part of it.
“And the rest?”
Victor looked at me.
“The year before Samuel died, Harrison tried to have me arrested.”
“For what?”
“Fraud.”
“Did you commit fraud?”
Victor almost smiled.
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Samuel produced documents proving Harrison had fabricated the accusation.”
I understood.
“Harrison could have gone to prison.”
“Yes.”
“But my grandfather didn’t press charges.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Victor was quiet.
“Because Celeste begged him not to destroy her children’s father.”
I looked down at the tablet.
Grant would have been ten years old.
Madison six.
“So Grandpa protected them.”
“He did.”
“And they grew up believing Harrison built everything alone.”
“Yes.”
The irony was almost unbearable.
My family had protected theirs.
Their response had been to call me a parasite.
I was still processing that when Victor’s phone rang.
He answered.
Said nothing for several seconds.
Then stood straighter.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Lock the building down.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
“Someone entered the Whitmore corporate headquarters twenty minutes ago.”
“At one in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“The badge used belonged to Grant.”
My stomach tightened.
Victor grabbed his coat.
“Security cameras?”
“Disabled on the executive floor.”
“What’s up there?”
“Financial records.”
I stood.
He shook his head.
“You’re staying here.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“That company belongs to my trust.”
“Which is exactly why you don’t walk into an unsecured building after midnight.”
I held his gaze.
“I spent three years letting the Whitmores decide where I could go.”
A long silence.
Victor sighed.
“I knew independence would eventually become inconvenient.”
Twenty minutes later, our SUV entered the underground garage beneath Whitmore Atlantic’s forty-two-story headquarters.
Six security men were waiting.
The executive elevators had been locked.
One camera on the thirty-eighth floor showed static.
We went up anyway.
When the elevator doors opened, I smelled smoke.
Not heavy smoke.
Paper.
Burning paper.
“Stay behind me,” Victor said.
We moved down the corridor.
At the far end, a door stood open.
Light flickered inside.
Victor pushed through first.
I followed.
The room was empty.
A metal wastebasket burned beneath the conference table.
Files lay scattered across the carpet.
A safe stood open.
Grant was gone.
But he had left something behind.
On the table sat a photograph.
My wedding photograph.
Grant and me smiling outside the church.
My face had been circled in red ink.
Underneath, someone had written:
SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHO SHE MARRIED.
Victor stared at the message.
Then at me.
“This isn’t Grant’s handwriting.”
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
“Then whose is it?”
A voice answered from behind us.
“Mine.”
We turned.
Lydia Cross stood in the doorway.
Grant’s so-called family friend.
His mistress.
Her mascara was streaked beneath her eyes.
May you like
She held a flash drive in one hand.
And a gun in the other.
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