He tracked me down at a private wealth-management center in Charlotte, where I sat with senior executives who had just moved a multibillion-dollar liquidity line into my personal account.

“Heather!” he gasped, though my security detail blocked him before he got close. “I know everything now. Gwendolyn manipulated me. Please — forgive me, let’s start over.”

I took off my reading glasses and looked into his frantic eyes. “Russell, discovering a lie doesn’t make you a good man,” I said. “It only proves how foolish you were all along.”

He tried to step closer; I stepped back in disgust. “Go back to your falling company,” I said quietly. “The real pain hasn’t started yet.”

Chapter 7 — The Collapse

The estate’s internal system had audio on the service corridors — something Russell had installed years earlier and forgotten about entirely. Arthur had it by the second day.

He brought it to Grant, and Grant listened to all three minutes of it, and then Grant came to find me in the room where my daughter was sleeping with a fresh bandage on her head.