Chapter 10 - THE FIRST TIME I FOUGHT BACK
I didn't cry when Scott threatened Lily.
Something inside me had already broken.
But it wasn't my courage.
It was my fear.
For fifteen years, I had been afraid of losing my marriage, my home, my company, and the family I thought I had built with Scott. I had spent years believing that keeping the peace was the same thing as protecting the people I loved.
Now I understood.
Peace had been the weapon they used against me.
I handed the phone to Detective Shaw.
“Trace him.”
She nodded.
I looked at Evelyn's letter again.
Then at the documents.
Then at Lily.
Scott thought he was still dealing with the woman who had walked out of his house carrying an old suitcase.
He was wrong.
I called Daniel Mercer.
He answered immediately.
“Diane, where are you?”
I almost smiled.
“You tell me.”
Silence.
Then he said,
“I've been worried about you.”
“No.”
My voice was calm.
“You've been worried about what I found.”
Another silence.
“Diane, you don't understand what's happening.”
“I understand perfectly.”
I opened the flash drive.
“I have your voice.”
He stopped breathing for a second.
Then I heard him whisper,
“Who else has heard it?”
I smiled.
“That's the wrong question.”
I hung up.
Then I made three calls.
The first was to a forensic accountant.
The second was to a corporate litigation attorney who had never worked for Scott.
The third was to every board member whose name appeared on the original incorporation agreement.
I didn't tell them everything.
I only told them one thing.
“My 51 percent ownership was stolen through forged documents.”
By noon, the first emergency injunction had been filed.
By three, Scott's planned sale of the company had been frozen.
By five, Vanessa's agreement was suspended.
And by seven, Daniel Mercer was no longer representing anyone.
But the biggest blow came at 8:14 p.m.
Detective Shaw walked into my hospital room carrying a file.
“We traced the call.”
“Scott?”
She shook her head.
“Someone else.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
I stared at it.
Marcus Hale.
He was standing beside Scott.
Beside Vanessa.
Beside Daniel.
And behind them was a man I had seen only once in my life.
At Scott's wedding to me.
His father.
I looked at the photograph again.
The man who was supposed to have died before our marriage was standing there.
Alive.
Older.
Smiling.
My entire body went cold.
“When was this taken?”
“Two weeks ago.”
I stared at Detective Shaw.
“Two weeks?”
She nodded.
“He's alive.”
My phone vibrated.
One new message.
No number.
Only four words.
“COME TO THE COMPANY.”
I looked at the message.
Then at Lily.
Then at the photograph of the man who had supposedly been dead for fifteen years.
For the first time since Scott threw me out, I wasn't running away from my husband's family.
I was going back.
May you like
And this time, I wasn't going back as Scott's wife.
I was going back as the woman who owned fifty-one percent of the company they had spent fifteen years trying to steal.
