Chapter 3

Monday morning, 7:55 AM. I walked into the Reyes Capital boardroom in a charcoal suit sharp enough to draw blood, my heels cracking against the marble like a countdown.

The board was already seated. Eleven men and women who, in my last life, had nodded along while Marcus dismantled my company in the language of "synergy" and "restructuring." Today they'd watch me do something none of them expected.

Marcus stood at the front of the room beside a screen, looking like he'd stepped out of a magazine. Tailored navy suit. Perfect smile. That effortless charm that had fooled me for six years.

"Good morning, everyone." He clicked to his first slide. "Today we finalize the trust restructuring that will streamline Reyes Capital's asset management going forward—"

"Stop the presentation, Marcus."

The room went silent. He blinked, his smile flickering. "Cass? We discussed this. The board already—"

"The board hasn't seen what I'm about to show them." I walked to the front, took the clicker from his hand, and let our fingers brush so he'd feel exactly how steady mine were. "Sit down."

He didn't sit. So I started anyway.

I pulled up the first slide. Not his. Mine.

"This is a flow chart of every dollar that has left Reyes Capital in the last eleven months through an entity called Meridian Holdings LLC." Click. "Meridian is a shell company with no employees, no offices, and a single signatory." Click. "That signatory is our CFO. My husband. Marcus Hale."

The blood drained from his face in real time.

"That's—Cass, those documents are fabricated, you've clearly been under enormous stress—"

"Funny." I tilted my head. "That's exactly what you said the last time."

His brow furrowed. He didn't understand the line. He never would.

I clicked again. Wire transfers. Forged board resolutions with signatures that almost matched mine. And then the kill shot—a document Marcus didn't know existed.

"This," I said, sliding a printout down the long table, "is a forensic accounting report commissioned by an outside firm over the weekend. It confirms that the final destination of forty-one million dollars in misappropriated funds is a personal trust account." I let it land. "Held in the name of my executive assistant. Brielle Cho."

The room exhaled all at once.

Marcus's mask shattered. "This is insane. Brielle is a junior staffer, there's no possible—"

"Then explain the trust documents you both signed in March." I didn't raise my voice. "Step by step. The whole board is listening. I have all the time in the world."

He opened his mouth. Closed it. His eyes darted to the door, then to the back of the room—where Brielle sat frozen, her coffee cup forgotten, her doe eyes wide with something far uglier than innocence.

From the glass-walled observation room above, I felt a gaze with its own gravity. I didn't need to look to know Dominic Sterling was watching the carnage unfold, his lawyers beside him, his accounts already poised to strike the moment Marcus tried to move a single dollar.

"This is a private matter," Marcus said tightly. "We'll handle it offline."

"I disagree." I set the clicker down. "You're trying to transfer control of my company to a trust you secretly control. If it's legitimate, the paperwork should be airtight. Unless there's a reason you can't explain your own restructuring?"

A murmur rolled through the board. I watched two of them slide their phones out and start texting their lawyers.

"You'll regret this," Marcus said, low enough that only the front row caught it.

"No," I said, smiling. "I already did. Once."

My phone buzzed against the table.

An unknown number: "Accounts frozen. He has nowhere to run. — D.S."

I looked up at Marcus, watching his entire world collapse in slow motion under the boardroom lights.

"The meeting's adjourned," I said. "Marcus, security's waiting in the hall."