Chapter 4
The first week as CEO was the hardest week of my life.
Every morning I woke up at five, my heart racing, expecting to find Daniel in bed next to me. For the first three nights, I slept with the lights on, a panic button on my nightstand, and one of Richard’s security guards posted right outside my bedroom door.
The house felt too big. Too empty. Too full of memories.
But I didn’t have time to fall apart.
Hale Construction had three major commercial projects in progress. A downtown skyscraper. A hospital expansion. A whole new housing development on the west side. All of them were over budget. All of them were behind schedule. All of them had been mismanaged by Daniel.
I spent twelve hours a day in the office.
I went through every file. Every invoice. Every change order. And everywhere I looked, I found Daniel’s fingerprints. Kickbacks to subcontractors. Fake bids from companies he secretly owned. Materials ordered and then “lost” so he could order them again and bill twice.
By the end of the first week, I’d fired seven people.
All of them Daniel’s friends. All of them complicit.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Richard told me every night when we’d eat takeout in his office, going over the numbers. “This company needed a purge. It was rotten from the inside out. You’re cutting out the cancer before it kills the whole body.”
But not everyone was happy about it.
On Tuesday, I found a dead rat on my desk when I came in in the morning. A typed note was taped to it: Stop digging, rich girl. Or you’ll be next.
The security team went crazy.
They checked every camera. Every employee. Every entrance. They never found who did it. But Richard doubled the guards anyway. He insisted on walking me to and from my office every single day, his cane tapping on the linoleum, his eyes scanning every corner.
“Let them try,” he’d growl. “Let them try to get past me.”
On Wednesday, Olivia’s lawyer called back.
She’d taken the deal. Five years in a minimum security facility in exchange for her full testimony against Daniel. Every email. Every text. Every recording.
Mara came over that night with a hard drive.
“Everything is on here,” she said, setting it on the table. “Olivia was smarter than we thought. She documented everything. Dates. Times. Amounts. She even recorded conversations where Daniel talked about… well. You should hear this one.”
She pressed play on her laptop.
Daniel’s voice filled the room. Cold. Calculating. Nothing like the charming man I’d married.
“Once the life insurance pays out, we’re set,” he was saying. “Five million tax free. The company will be mine anyway once the old man kicks it. And Clara’s trust? That’ll be mine too. Widows inherit everything, right? It’ll look like such a tragedy. Carbon monoxide leak. They happen all the time. No one will suspect a thing.”
Olivia’s voice, giggling.
“You’re terrible, baby. But I love it. When do we do it?”
“Two weeks,” Daniel said. “Right after the anniversary. I’ll take her to the cabin. The one in Aspen. No neighbors for miles. It’ll be perfect.”
I felt sick.
The anniversary. He’d planned to kill me two days after our fifth anniversary. Two days after I’d caught him with Olivia. If I’d come home even an hour later that day. If I hadn’t had the proof ready to send. If I’d waited just one more week…
I would be dead right now.
“Clara?” Richard’s voice was soft. He was watching me closely. “You okay?”
I nodded.
I was more than okay. I was furious. Furious at myself for ever loving him. Furious at him for wasting five years of my life. Furious that I’d ever thought he could change.
“Play the rest,” I said.
The next recording was worse.
Daniel was talking to someone else. A man’s voice I didn’t recognize.
“…make it look like an accident,” Daniel was saying. “Fifty thousand cash when it’s done. Another fifty when the insurance pays out. No loose ends. And make sure it looks like carbon monoxide. I don’t want her to suffer. Much.”
The man laughed.
“Got it, boss. Aspen cabin, two weeks. Carbon monoxide. No problem. The wife won’t know what hit her.”
The recording ended.
Mara closed her laptop.
“We traced the number,” she said quietly. “The man on the phone is a known hitman out of Houston. The FBI picked him up yesterday. He’s already confessed. Daniel paid him a ten thousand dollar deposit last week. He was just waiting for the date.”
I closed my eyes.
A hitman. Daniel had actually hired a hitman to kill me. Fifty thousand dollars for my life.
I thought about all the nights I’d fallen asleep next to him, safe and trusting, while he’d been planning my murder. I thought about the Aspen cabin. The place we’d gone on our honeymoon. The place he’d chosen to die.
“He’s never getting out,” Richard said, his voice like ice. “I don’t care how many lawyers he hires. I don’t care who he knows. He is going to rot in prison for the rest of his natural life. And if he ever does get out? I’ll be waiting.”
The next day was Daniel’s arraignment.
I didn’t go. Mara said I didn’t need to. The media would be there in full force, and it would be better if I stayed at the office, showing the world that life went on, that Hale Construction was still standing.
But I watched it on the news in my office with the door closed.
Daniel was led into the courtroom in chains, wearing an orange jumpsuit. He looked terrible. His hair was a mess. He’d lost weight already. His eyes were red and puffy from crying.
The judge read the charges.
Embezzlement. Eighteen counts.
Conspiracy to commit fraud.
Domestic assault.
And then the big one.
Solicitation of murder for hire.
Daniel collapsed when he heard that last charge. Literally collapsed. His legs gave out, and the marshals had to catch him and hold him up. He started sobbing, screaming that it wasn’t true, that Olivia had set him up, that I’d paid the hitman to say those things.
The judge banged his gavel.
“Bail is denied,” he said. “The defendant is a flight risk and a danger to the community. He will remain in federal custody until trial.”
They led him away.
He was still screaming as they dragged him out, calling my name, begging me to believe him.
I turned off the TV.
I sat there in my big leather chair, in the office that used to be Daniel’s, and I felt… nothing. No sadness. No pity. No regret. Just empty. And then, slowly, the emptiness filled with something else.
Relief.
He was gone. He was locked up. He couldn’t hurt me anymore. He couldn’t hurt anyone else.
There was a soft knock on my door.
“Come in.”
It was Marcus. He was the foreman on the downtown skyscraper project. Mid-forties, tough as nails, hands like sandpaper. He’d worked for Richard for twenty years. He’d quit three months ago because he couldn’t stand working for Daniel anymore. I’d tracked him down and rehired him my first day as CEO.
“Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Hale,” he said, holding his hard hat in his hands. “Just wanted to let you know. We got the steel delivery in. The good stuff. Not the cheap garbage Daniel was buying. We’re back on schedule. Actually, we’re ahead.”
I smiled.
“That’s great news, Marcus. Thank you.”
He hesitated in the doorway.
“I also wanted to say,” he said, looking me in the eye. “I saw the news today. About Daniel. About everything. I just want you to know… the guys on the site? We’re all with you. Every last one of us. Richard built this company on honesty and hard work. Daniel ran it into the ground. But you? You’re bringing it back. We see it. We appreciate it.”
He touched the brim of his hard hat and left.
I sat there for a long time after he was gone.
The guys on the site were with me. The board was with me. Richard was with me.
For the first time since I’d taken over, I allowed myself to think that maybe I really could do this. That maybe I wasn’t just the rich girl with the trust fund. That maybe I was actually a leader.
I picked up the phone and called Richard.
May you like
“Tell Mara,” I said. “I want to add one more charge against Daniel. Attempted murder. We have the hitman’s confession. We have the recordings. We have the life insurance policy. He doesn’t get away with any of it.”
“Consider it done,” Richard said. And I could hear the pride in his voice. “That’s my girl.”
