Chapter Three #3
"Twelve weeks of no movement, the doctor said," Marcy scolded gently, eyeing Kinsley as she awkwardly lowered herself into a chair. "And you spent four hours typing code with your left hand today."
"I am ambidextrous in spirit," Kinsley waved off the concern. "Besides, I had to liquidate our secondary stock portfolios and transfer the funds to the offshore accounts. If we’re going to disappear, we’re going to do it right. No digital footprints. They’ll never find us."
They weren't leaving immediately. There were loose ends to tie, notice to give at the periphery of the company, and the sheer, intoxicating pleasure of simply planning.
They were no longer surviving; they were living.
They spent their evenings drinking wine, arguing over the merits of Tokyo versus Geneva, and looking forward to the dawn of a new day.
At the Monroe Estate, Gabriela lounged on a chaise in her private suite, surrounded by mountains of designer gifts, floral arrangements, and the fawning adoration of a dozen maids.
She took a sip of her sparkling water, her eyes drifting toward the window.
A tiny, microscopic sliver of guilt wormed its way into the back of her mind. Kinsley’s words—One day the truth will come out, Gabriela, the whole truth. And then you will rot in hell—echoed in her ears.
Her cheek still held a faint, residual ache from the slap.
Gabriela set the glass down, her perfect brow furrowing.
She couldn't tell them the truth. She simply couldn't. If she admitted that she had been fighting with Kinsley in the backseat, that she had turned around to scream at the charity case and accidentally jerked the steering wheel into the oncoming lane... they would be horrified.
The pedestal they had placed her on would crumble. Kade, who demanded perfection, would look at her with the same disgust he currently reserved for Marcy. And worse, Marcy would become the tragic victim. Marcy would become the center of everyone’s pity and love.
That was completely unacceptable.
Gabriela smoothed the silk of her robe, rationalizing away the guilt with practiced ease. I lost two years of my life; she told herself firmly. While I was in a coma, Marcy was living. She had a job, a house, her freedom. It’s only fair that she pays a price now. I am simply balancing the scales.
With a deep, cleansing breath, Gabriela pushed the orphans from her mind. She had a gala to prepare for.
It had been four weeks since the violent confrontation in the hospital room, and almost two months since Gabriela had first opened her eyes.
The grand gates of the Monroe Estate were thrown open, welcoming a fleet of luxury vehicles.
It was the homecoming celebration, a week-long extravaganza of wealth, power, and legacy.
Music drifted through the manicured gardens. Champagne flowed in crystal towers. Kade and Cruz stood by Gabriela’s side, the perfect, formidable protectors of the golden girl.
But deep within the bowels of the Monroe mansion, far away from the music and the laughter, the door of Arthur Monroe’s private, soundproof study clicked shut.
Leon Lancaster and Connor Tate stood in the center of the dimly lit room. The only light came from the computer monitor on the mahogany desk.
Connor’s face was ashen; the color completely drained from his usually sharp features. His hands, usually as steady as a surgeon's, were trembling faintly.
Leon stood frozen, his eyes locked onto the screen, a horrifying, sickening nausea rolling through his stomach.
On the screen was the unedited, raw data from the Monroe vehicle’s black box telemetry, cross-referenced with a recovered, decrypted audio file from the dashboard dashcam—a file Kinsley had tried to present two years ago, which had been buried by the Monroes' own legal team to avoid insurance complications.
The data was clear. It was irrefutable.
The driver’s seat weight sensor registered Gabriela Monroe. The audio recorded Gabriela screaming insults at Kinsley. It recorded Marcy, from the passenger seat, begging Gabriela to keep her eyes on the road. It recorded the exact, catastrophic jerk of the steering wheel initiated by the driver.
"Oh my God," Connor whispered, the words tearing out of his throat like barbed wire. He ran a shaking hand through his hair. "She lied. She looked Kade right in the eyes, she looked all of us in the eyes, and she lied."
Leon felt the room spin. The memory of Camille slapping Marcy, the memory of Kade calling her a parasite, the sickening sound of Cruz shattering Kinsley’s wrist—it all crashed down on him with the crushing weight of a collapsing building.
"We didn't just ruin them, Connor," Leon said, his voice a hollow, haunted rasp.
He looked up at the ceiling, listening to the muffled sounds of the celebration above them, a celebration built on the bones of two innocent women.
"We destroyed them. For two years, we subjected them to hell. Cruz broke that Kinsley’s wrist. And Marcy... Marcy just stood there and took it."
Connor stared at the data, the horrifying reality of what they had all become staring back at him. "We are colossal fools. We are monsters, Leon. What the hell do we do now?"