Chapter 8 - The Falling CardsBefore Mark could process the document on the floor, his phone began to ring.
It wasn't a gentle ringtone—it was the high-priority alert chime reserved for the executive board of Bennett & Vance.
Mark scrambled off his knees, his hands shaking as he pulled the phone from his pocket. He looked at the caller ID: VICTORIA VANCE.
"Answer it," I suggested softly.
Mark wiped his face with his sleeve, swallowed hard, and pressed the receiver to his ear. "V-Victoria? Hi, I just landed from my business trip—"
"Where the hell are you, Mark?!" Victoria’s voice roared through the speaker so loudly I could hear every word from five feet away. "Get your ass to the corporate office right now!"
"Victoria, what's wrong? My mother just passed away last night—"
"I know about your mother!" Victoria snapped, devoid of sympathy. "And I also know you weren't in Chicago! I have Federal Marshals and private auditors sitting in our main conference room right now, Mark!"
Mark’s face drained of what little color he had left. "What?! Why?!"
"AV Real Estate Holdings just called in your firm’s six-million-dollar expansion line of credit!" Victoria screamed. "And their legal counsel just handed us evidence that you diverted over $400,000 from our corporate escrow accounts into a private luxury villa account in Maui under the name of Chloe Montgomery!"
Mark stumbled backward, hitting the wall. "No... no, Victoria, that’s a misunderstanding—"
"Chloe Montgomery is currently being detained at LAX for wire fraud and attempt to flee!" Victoria continued, her voice shaking with rage. "She tried to clear your joint offshore account twenty minutes ago! The board has just voted unanimously to terminate your partnership, strip your equity, and hand over every transaction log to the District Attorney!"
"Victoria, wait! Please!" Mark sobbed, dropping his phone onto the floor as Victoria slammed the line shut.
He stared at the blank screen, his chest heaving, his mouth open in total, unadulterated terror.
He looked up at me, his eyes wide and wild. "How... how did they find out about the Maui account? How did they know about the lease?"
I took a step closer to him, pulling the silver key on its thin platinum chain out from beneath my coat collar so it rested against my chest, sparkling under the foyer light.
Mark’s eyes locked onto the tiny silver key.
His jaw dropped. Memory seemed to hit him like a physical blow—the memory of his mother’s quiet refusal thirty years ago, her cool gaze, her promise that the right person will know what it opens.
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"No..." Mark breathed out, his voice cracking. "No... Mom wouldn't... she didn't..."
"She did," I whispered. "Margaret gave me the key, Mark. She gave me everything."
