Chapter 4
The FBI arrived at the firm an hour later.
Two special agents, both sharp-eyed and no-nonsense.
They took one look at the video, the audit, the USB drive pulled from Brandon’s pocket, and they were all in.
“This is a career-making case,” said Agent Torres, the lead investigator. “We’ll have warrants for their financials, their phones, their Midtown penthouse by end of day. But we need more. We need a witness who can testify that Brandon and Margaret planned this from the start. Someone on the inside.”
I knew exactly who she meant.
Lila Marlow.
The junior associate who’d given Brandon the access codes.
The woman he’d been cheating on me with for eighteen months.
If she flipped, the case was a slam dunk.
If she didn’t?
Brandon would throw her under the bus first.
He’d say she acted alone.
That he’d had no idea any of it was happening.
And with his charm, his family name, his expensive lawyers?
He might just get away with it.
That night, I found Lila at a tiny coffee shop in Brooklyn, the kind with no security cameras, no Wi-Fi, no one who would recognize either of us.
She was sitting in the back booth, hood up, sunglasses on even though it was dark outside.
She looked terrified.
I slid into the booth across from her.
She flinched like I’d hit her.
“Olivia,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. He made me do it. He said if I didn’t give him the codes, he’d get me fired. He said he’d tell the whole firm I’d embezzled money myself. I was scared. I have a little sister. I’m putting her through college. I couldn’t lose my job.”
I stared at her.
I wanted to hate her.
I wanted to scream at her, to throw my coffee in her face, to make her feel even a fraction of the pain she’d caused me.
But I didn’t.
Because I saw myself in her.
The girl who’d once believed Brandon Hawthorne’s lies.
The girl who’d been too scared to walk away.
“I know he manipulated you,” I said, my voice calm. “I know what he’s capable of. I was married to him for five years. I know exactly how he twists words, how he makes you think you have no other choice.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“Sorry isn’t enough,” I said. “But it’s a start. I can make a deal for you with the FBI. Full immunity for everything you did. Witness protection if you need it. A new job at a different firm, a glowing reference, whatever you need to start over. All you have to do is testify. Tell them everything. Every conversation, every threat, every time he forced you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
She hesitated.
“Brandon will kill me,” she whispered. “He said if I ever talked, he’d make sure no one ever found my body. He knows people, Olivia. He has connections.”
I reached across the table and covered her shaking hand with mine.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I said. “The FBI will protect you. I will protect you. I have the best security team in the city. You and your sister will be safe 24/7 until this is over. I promise you that. But you have to help me take him down. Because if we don’t? He’ll do this to someone else. Another young woman. Another wife. Another person who thinks they have no choice.”
She stared at me for a long time.
Then she slowly nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll tell them everything.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small, beat-up external hard drive.
“I made copies of everything,” she said. “Every email, every text, every voice mail Brandon ever sent me. All the transfer records. Even the recordings of him and Margaret planning to frame you. I knew one day he’d turn on me. I wanted insurance.”
I took the hard drive.
It was warm from being in her bag.
It felt like holding justice in the palm of my hand.
“Thank you,” I said.
We left the coffee shop together.
Two FBI agents were waiting outside in an unmarked car to take Lila to a safe house.
As she got in, she turned back to me.
“For what it’s worth,” she said. “He never loved you. Not even a little bit. He used to laugh about you behind your back. Call you his ‘rich little robot.’ Margaret was worse. She said you were too stupid to ever catch on. That you’d take the fall and they’d be sipping champagne on a beach in the Caribbean by Christmas.”
I stood there on the sidewalk, the cold wind cutting through my coat.
I’d known they didn’t love me.
But hearing it said out loud?
It hurt worse than I’d imagined.
I got in my own car and told my driver to take me home.
Halfway there, my phone pinged.
An unknown number.
A text.
One single photo.
My front door.
Taken ten minutes ago.
Followed by another text.
You think you won, you stupid bitch?
We’re just getting started.
My blood ran cold.
I called my security team immediately.
“Double the patrols at my place,” I said. “Now. And pull all footage from the last hour. Someone was just outside my building.”
I stared at the text on my phone.
Brandon was right about one thing.
This wasn’t over.
May you like
It was only just beginning.
And he was going to make me pay for every single thing I’d done to ruin his perfect plan.
