“What?”
“Are you certain?”
I looked down at my belly.
The baby kicked beneath my palm.
For the first time that night, I smiled.
Not because I was happy.
Because I was done being afraid.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m certain.”
The call ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Grant’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
He answered.
“Hello?”
A pause.
“What do you mean the account is frozen?”
I looked at him.
His eyes met mine.
And for the first time in three years, Grant Bennett looked at me like he finally understood who was standing across the room.
The woman he had tried to humiliate.
The woman he had ordered out of her own home.
The woman whose husband had held her down while he burned her.
The woman who had quietly paid for almost everything.
I picked up my coat.
“I think it’s time we talked about what else belongs to me.”
Ryan stared at me.
“What else?”
I opened the penthouse door.
Then I turned around.
“Oh, Ryan.”
He looked at me.
“There are a few things you don’t know about our marriage.”
His face tightened.
“Like what?”
I held his gaze.
“Like the fact that I never put your name on the life insurance policy.”
Silence.
“And the beneficiary isn’t you.”
I stepped into the hallway.
Behind me, someone whispered my name.
I didn’t turn around.
Because suddenly, the mystery wasn’t why they had treated me like I was powerless.
The mystery was how much they were about to lose now that I wasn’t.
The elevator doors closed between us.
For several seconds, I simply stood there.
My back against the mirrored wall.
One hand over my belly.
The other still gripping my phone.
I expected to feel victorious.
Instead, I felt sick.
Not because I regretted what I’d done.
Because the adrenaline was wearing off.
And now I could feel the pain.
A sharp, burning sensation spread across my abdomen where Grant’s cigarette had pressed through the cashmere.
I sucked in a breath.
The baby moved.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure whether I was speaking to my baby or myself.
The elevator reached the lobby.
The doors opened.
My attorney was already waiting.
She stood beside the glass entrance in a dark coat, her expression changing the moment she saw me.
“Claire.”
She walked toward me.
Then she saw the burn.
Her face hardened.
“Did he do that?”
I nodded.
“And Ryan held you?”
Another nod.
She closed her eyes for a second.
“Okay.”
Her voice became very calm.
“Then we’re not discussing finances tonight.”
She took my arm gently.
“We’re going to get you checked first.”
I wanted to argue.
I didn’t.
For the first time that night, someone had told me what mattered.
Not the penthouse.
Not the money.
Not revenge.
Me.
And the baby.
Two hours later, I sat beneath fluorescent lights while a doctor examined the burn.
The baby was fine.
Those words were the only ones that mattered.
Fine.
My baby was fine.
I closed my eyes.
A tear slipped down my cheek.
My attorney sat beside me.
“You scared me,” she said quietly.
“I scared myself.”
“You don’t have to be strong every second.”
I laughed softly.
“I’ve been strong for three years.”
“No,” she said.
“You’ve been surviving for three years.”
I looked at her.
There was a difference.
A painful one.
She placed a folder on my lap.
“While you were being examined, I made several calls.”
I stared at the folder.
“What happened?”
“The penthouse account is restricted.”
I nodded.
“Several automatic payments connected to Ryan and his family have also been stopped.”
I looked up.
“Several?”
She gave me a tired smile.
“Claire, you have been financing far more than you realized.”
My stomach dropped.
“What do you mean?”
She opened the folder.
“Let’s start with your father-in-law’s company.”
I frowned.
“What about it?”
“You remember the loan you made two years ago?”
“Yes.”
“You thought it was a personal loan to help him through a temporary cash-flow problem.”
“It was.”
“No.”
She slid a document toward me.
“It was disguised as one.”
I stared at the page.
My name appeared at the bottom.
So did Grant’s.
But the amount was different from what I remembered.
Much different.
“I gave him three hundred thousand.”
My attorney shook her head.
“You transferred three hundred thousand.”
She tapped the document.
“But the agreement you signed was for eight hundred thousand.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
“I found the original banking records.”
She turned another page.
“Your three-hundred-thousand-dollar transfer was one payment in a larger arrangement.”
I stared at the numbers.
Eight hundred thousand.
I remembered Grant telling me his business needed help.
I remembered Ryan sitting beside me at the kitchen counter.
I remembered Diane crying.
I remembered feeling guilty for hesitating.
And I remembered Ryan saying:
We’re family, Claire.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
“Where did the other five hundred thousand come from?”
My attorney didn’t answer immediately.
That scared me more than anything else.
“Claire,” she said, “that’s what we need to find out.”
When I returned to the penthouse the next afternoon, nobody was there.
The place looked completely different.
Not because the furniture had changed.
Because I had.
I walked through the dining room.
The broken plate was gone.
The wine had been cleaned.
The cigarette butt had been removed.
But I had photographs.
Copies.
Time stamps.
And the video.
Brooke had eventually sent it.
Not because she had suddenly grown a conscience.
Because my attorney had sent her a preservation notice.
She had panicked.
The video was almost four minutes long.
I had watched it once.
That was enough.
I didn’t need to watch it again.
My attorney had already secured a copy.
I stood by the window.
The same window where I had watched fireworks with Ryan the previous New Year’s Eve.
He’d kissed my forehead.
He’d promised me this year would be different.
I had believed him.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
There was silence.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Claire?”
“Yes.”
“This is Melissa.”
I didn’t recognize the name.
“Melissa who?”
A pause.
“Melissa Grant.”
My heart stopped.
Grant’s wife?
No.
His sister?
No.
Then I understood.
“Your father’s name was Robert Bennett,” she said.
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Yes.”
“I worked with him.”
I couldn’t breathe.
My father had died six years earlier.
His company had collapsed shortly before his death.
At least, that was what I’d been told.
My mother had always said the business failed because of bad investments.
Debt.
Bad timing.
I swallowed.
“What do you want?”
“I think you need to know what really happened to your father.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Why?”
“Because your husband knows.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Ryan knows.”
I walked slowly toward the kitchen island.
“Why would Ryan know anything about my father?”
“Because his father was involved.”
I sat down.
Melissa continued.
“Claire, your father didn’t simply lose his company.”
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
“What happened?”
“He was pushed out.”
“By who?”
Silence.
Then:
“Grant Bennett.”
My hand went numb.
“No.”
“I have documents.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
I looked toward the windows.
Denver stretched beneath me, bright and enormous.
Suddenly the penthouse didn’t feel like a home.
It felt like a room full of ghosts.
