Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Sophie
I squeeze my eyes shut as adrenaline floods me so hard that my hand shakes.
Part of me doesn’t want to see this.
But I have to.
The first document that opens is from my university, and for a moment, I don’t understand what I’m looking at.
Then I see it.
FINAL NOTICE.
My stomach drops.
My tuition balance was overdue, and unless payment was received by five o’clock, my fall registration would be cancelled.
This can’t be possible.
Lucian’s hand tightens on my shoulder.
Just the day before that, Mom took me shopping for towels and sheets, insisting I needed the expensive mattress topper because dorm beds were notoriously uncomfortable.
Dad carried boxes up three flights of stairs and complained dramatically about the absence of an elevator while Mom laughed at him from the hallway.
Then there’s an email from my mother to Dad. The university called again. They are cancelling her registration if the balance isn’t paid.
Dad’s response is underneath. I’m working on it.
My mom fires back. Use one of the tenant escrow accounts.
Oh God.
Mom’s suggestion isn’t just immoral; it’s illegal. That money belongs to tenants, not my parents.
Then she follows up. We’ll put it back before anyone knows.
For several seconds, I can’t move.
My mother.
The woman who drilled honesty into me. Who returned money when a cashier gave her too much change.
She didn’t just look the other way while Dad crossed a line. She told him to do it.
Lucian tightens his grip. “You didn’t know.”
Does that change anything?
Reluctantly I turn back to the screen.
There are more emails, more bills, all about me. In each, Dad is worried about where the money will come from. And Mom is just as firm. We need to take care of her.
Tears burn my eyes. My mom didn’t want diamonds or vacations. She wanted me to have the best possible life.
And because I study financial behavior for a living, I understand exactly how someone gets there. One exception. A single justification. A vow that things will be corrected before anyone is hurt.
A folder marked PERSONAL contains years of records between my parents.
But the further I go, the less straightforward they become.
Payments leave one account and appear in another. Funds move through one of Dad’s companies, then another, sometimes on the same day.
Money earmarked for an obligation disappears days before it’s due and reappears after some other deposit lands.
I recognize the pattern immediately.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Except Peter and Paul are corporations, loans, reserves, and creditors.
And my mother knew.
Not everything.
I can see that too.
Some emails contain questions.
Why did this move?
I thought that account was restricted.
Dad’s answers are always reassuring.
It’s temporary, Liz.
I’ve got it covered.
Then, eventually, Mom stops asking so many questions.
That hurts more than if she never asked at all.
Because I know exactly what happened.
She got sick.
Lucian slides his fingers into my hair, gently gathering it away from my face before his palm settles against the back of my neck, warm and steady.
Caleb remains on my other side.
For a few moments, none of us speaks.
“I teach people not to do this.” I hear the disbelief in my own voice. “I literally teach people how dangerous it is to keep moving money because you’re convinced something will happen before the next obligation comes due.”
Time loses shape.
Caleb takes a couple of calls near the windows. Lucian disappears long enough to shower and returns in fresh clothes.
Later, Caleb does the same. Room service arrives, and at some point, Lucian offers me a mug of coffee with just the right amount of creamer.
I start to accept it, but my hands are shaking too hard.
He sets down the cup and brushes his thumb beneath one of my eyes. Until this moment, I didn’t realize I’d been crying.
Unable to take a drink, I turn back to the archive.
The next folder bears my name.
I stop breathing.
Sophie Langford.
Caleb swears quietly and places his hand over mine. “Don’t—”
Click.
The screen fills with documents I recognize.
A spreadsheet I built years ago after Dad asked me to double-check cash-flow assumptions on a small property acquisition.
My handwriting appears in the margin of a scanned loan worksheet. And so does my signature.
What is this?
Confused, I continue on. Then my stomach turns.
“No.”
Frantically I scroll.
The analysis I gave my father was attached to a larger financing package, presented as a professional review with my credentials beneath my name.
I had checked his numbers over coffee one evening at his house, providing a second set of eyes while my mother was undergoing treatment.
And he’d presented it to investors as an actual recommendation.
My head spinning, I sit back. “He used me.”
Neither of my men respond.
I open another file and find the same thing. There’s a calculation I remember doing. And then another piece of work that he cleaned up and repurposed, using me to look more respectable.
“He used me,” I repeat, anger flashing through my pain.
Lucian reaches for me, but I shove away his hand and wrap my arms around myself protectively as I pace to the window.
Vegas is fully awake, and sunlight blazes across the glass towers as if nothing in the world has changed. And everything has.
My father shamelessly repurposed my name and credentials, and my mother was far less innocent in the family’s financial dealings than I ever imagined.
Heartbroken, I turn back toward Lucian and Caleb.
My husbands exchange glances but offer no reassuring words, and I appreciate that they don’t attempt to soften the truth.
Not wanting to know more, but needing to, I swipe away the moisture from my cheeks, take several breaths, then return to the desk.
There are dozens more files under my name, but I don’t need to open them all.
I know the pattern now. I’ve recognized it, so I don’t need every data point. I have enough to know this was intentional.
Compartmentalizing that so that I can be objective, I return to the financial directories and look at my father’s records.
The results are damning.
One loan becomes three. A lender sells a note to another company. Then a credit line he relied on is abruptly reduced.
Not surprisingly, another lender steps in, offering more expensive money. And six months later, that obligation changes hands too.
By the time I surface enough to notice my husbands again, Caleb is on yet another call. Lucian is working from his laptop at the dining table. They’ve given me space without leaving me alone.
I study the names of the companies, entities registered in different states and represented by different legal firms.
Looking for patterns, I keep clicking. There’s something bothering me about the timing.
I pull up another window. Then another.
A new source of money seems to appear whenever Dad is close to collapse.
Just enough to keep him moving. Then, when he might finally stabilize, another door closes.
It’s not a coincidence.
I continue following the money. Another loan, another transfer. And then one of the entities appears a second time. And again a year later.
Alder Strategic Holdings.
I click into the file to discover an organizational chart buried in the attachments.
Alder is at the top with two subsidiaries beneath it.
Puzzled, I lean forward and continue to scroll.
At the bottom of the page is a notation, and I know that it isn’t my father’s handwriting.
Also known as Hawthorne & Pierce.
My hand slips from the mouse.
Behind me, the room is completely silent.
Slowly I turn.
Caleb isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at the note.
Lucian is too. “Fuck.”
His curse echoes off the ceiling.