Chapter 9 - Melanie
“Good morning, you’ve reached the office for Griffin Bose, Chief Cybersecurity Officer at KG Securities. My name is Paulie; how can I help you today?”
“Hi Paulie, it’s Melanie Landon… uh Kyle Walsh’s sister. I need to speak to Griffin about something personal and urgent.” I sounded more confident than I felt.
“Of course, let me see if he’s available to take your call. One moment please.” Paulie put me on hold but returned just a moment later. “Mr. Bose is available. Take care.”
“Melanie?” Griffin sounded concerned. “Is Kyle alright? I just got back from the funeral last night, but he was okay when I left.”
“Good morning, Griffin, as far as I know Kyle is fine. I’m actually calling you because I want to avoid involving Kyle.”
“Okay… You left in a rush last night, if I’m remembering correctly…” Griffin’s tone was cautious.
“That’s correct.” I took a deep breath and then let it out, “to discover that my husband is having an affair.”
“What?! Are you serious?” Griffin sounded pissed, “Kyle is going to kick Ben’s ass.”
“I don’t want Kyle to know, yet.” I could hear a hint of desperation creeping into my voice. “I’m calling you personally, because I knew that if I submitted a request for the security footage over the past week it would flag for Kyle, and he has enough to deal with.”
“I can get you that footage.” Griffin assured me, “but Melanie, you know that Kyle would want to know what’s going on with you…”
“I’m going back to North Dakota next week, as soon as I get things sorted here enough to go and I will tell him and my parents then.
” I grimaced. They were going to be so disappointed in Ben.
While they hadn’t been happy that we were getting married so young, they had loved him like he was their own.
“Is there anything else you need?” Griffin asked.
“I don’t think we use KG Securities for anything other than our home security system… do we?”
“Let me check… uh, it looks like you and Ben have three home security systems registered with us. One of them is your primary residence, one is located in Vegas, and one is located in Miami.”
I flinched away from the phone in surprise.
“What?” I knew about the Miami residence.
Ben had bought that when he secured his first million dollars; it was just a condo near the Miami office.
Since Miami was where they held a lot of the conferences, he thought it was a good investment.
He let clients use it when they were in town.
I didn’t realize we were using the security company for it, though.
“What property in Vegas?” I asked.
“It looks like there is a condo with a doorbell camera and one interior motion detected camera. It was added to the account last year.”
“Can I have all of the footage from that one.” I gritted out. “The past week from my home, and I’ll get back to you about Miami when I cross check the dates. He can’t delete any of the footage, right?”
“Nope. It’s all backed up here and I’ll personally store a copy of everything just in case.” I could hear him typing on the keyboard.
“Thank you.” I murmured. The outrage I felt over the secret property was starting to drain away, and it left me feeling tired. So tired.
“Is there anything else you need… even if it’s not a service we provide?” Griffin asked slowly.
“Like what?” I laughed dryly, “It’s not like you can get me his phone records and bank activities.”
“Why not?” He sounded serious.
“Wha-“
He cut me off.
“Being the Chief of Cybersecurity requires extensive knowledge about computers… and hackers…” he trailed off. “Experience even.”
“Oh…” It finally dawned on me what he was trying to tell me.
“Are you calling me from your cell?” He asked.
“Yeah…”
“Do you share this phone plan with your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have another number you can be reached at?”
“My friend Lily is with me.” I waved her over and mouthed ‘I need your phone’ to her. She handed it to me with a curious frown. I gave him her number, and a moment later, a text came through.
“I’ll talk to you soon.” Griffin said and hung up the phone.
I checked Lily’s phone, and it was a text from an unknown number.
Unknown: Get a burner so he doesn’t have access to your calls and texts. Call this number when you have that phone. Have a list of known accounts and phone numbers. -G
“What was that all about?” Lily asked as I handed her back the phone.
“Griffin says I need to pick up a new phone, asap.”
“Let’s go.” She shrugged and smiled.
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
Me: New number. -M
Griffin: Is it registered under your name?
Me: No, I bought a prepaid, pay-as-you-go phone with cash. I felt like I was a spy in training.
Griffin: Kyle wasn’t exaggerating…
Me: About? confused emoji
Griffin: You’re a total goofball.
Me: Rude. angry emoji
Griffin: Would it help if he said it was cute?
Me: Did Kyle say that?
Griffin: Would you believe me if I said he did?
Me: No, because my brother has never referred to me as 'cute'. Nice try. Still going to kick Kyle's ass.
Griffin: I’m walking into a meeting. Send me accounts, phone numbers, and addresses you want me to look into. I’ll call you tonight.
Me: Okay.
“Soooo….” Lily bumped her shoulder against mine. “What did he say?”
“He wants me to get a list together of things for him to look into. We should check the home office for secret account numbers or phones…” I grimaced. “I’m not sure I’m ready to find out just how much he’s been hiding. Knowing that he had a secret property in Vegas was hard enough.”
“You are strong enough to do this. Think about it this way, the more you find… the easier it will be to get that divorce.” Lily was always trying to look on the bright side of things.
It served her well in her line of work, where she was always comforting frantic brides or being a human shield against critical mothers.
“Alright.” I groaned and trudged my way to his home office.
Ben kept things very neat and organized.
He didn’t like clutter, and he didn’t like it when his things were moved.
I knew that he would be able to tell if I moved anything out of place, but for once, I didn’t care about his ‘system’.
Lily checked the bookcases for anything tucked between books or any ‘secret passageways’ my overly imaginative friend claimed.
I methodically emptied every drawer in his desk and then looked through his filing cabinet.
He was clever. I had to give him that.
At first glance, it looked like there wasn’t anything to find.
Which was because he was very good at putting nondescript labels on folders.
When I looked a little closer, I realized that he had slipped his own financials into folders labeled as clients.
It looked like my husband had been too humble when he was telling me how much money he’d earned the past two years.
How cute.
Then there was his investment portfolio. The man owned shares in several very successful companies and a few that were trending towards success.
“Look at all of this.” I muttered to Lily and handed her some of the sheets. “I can’t believe he risked getting caught… because of the infidelity clause all of this becomes marital assets…”
“What an idiot.” Lily scoffed, “I thought he was dumb just for losing the best woman he’d ever find… but to go to all the effort of hiding this stuff from you and then get caught cheating.” She shook her head with an exasperated expression on her face.
I hummed to acknowledge her words, but I was too busy reading the file full of NDA’s that was in my hand.
Bianca, Marabelle, Celine, Jenna, Kara, Hannah, Penny, Cindy, Jillian, Dinah, Azaleah, Sharee…
Who the hell are these women, and why did they all sign NDA’s?
Oh my god.
It hit me like a ton of bricks.
“That fucker made his affair partners sign NDA’s” I screeched. Lily looked up from the paper she was reading with wide eyes.
“What?”
“There are twelve women in this folder who have all signed NDA’s…
he doesn’t do anything for work that would require this much confidentiality from this many women…
he has them sign fucking NDA’s before he fucks them.
” I was visibly shaking. “My name is on all of these as someone they agree to never speak to.”
“Holy shit…” Lily gasped. “This is a scary level of organized for wanting to sleep around.”
“Why marry me if he just wanted to sleep around… why not get separated?! All he needed to do to not be held to the infidelity clause… was legally separate from me.” I could feel the tears building. “I don’t understand why he would do this.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t think there’s going to be a logical explanation for this.” Lily wrapped her arms around me.
“I need to take pictures of everything.” I took a deep, shaky breath. “We need the evidence but if I keep the actual files, he will know that I know.”
Together, we quickly took pictures of everything and then tried to carefully put it all back where it belonged.
I was hoping Griffin could help me narrow down which accounts were Ben’s and which belonged to clients.
Next, I opened the safe in the room. I wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t anything incriminating in there, as I had always had the code, but I needed to check anyway.
Then I sat down to look through his computer.
Unfortunately, we heard his car pull into the driveway before I had even typed in the password. Lily and I exchanged nervous looks and hurried to the living room. Just a few minutes sooner, and he would’ve caught us red-handed.
“What is he doing here?” Lily hissed as we sat down on the couch and tried to look like we had been there for a while.
“Being a pain in the ass.” I grumbled.
I heard the front door open and shut, and Ben yelled out for me.
“Melanie, baby … are you home?”
I didn’t say a word and just glared at the doorway until he entered the room and froze at the sight of two very angry women.
“Oh, hello Lily… I didn’t realize we had company.” He let a slow, charismatic smile slide into place.
“You don’t have company. Your wife does.” Lily sniped. Ben frowned at her and then shifted his attention to me.
“We need to talk. Alone.”
“No.”
His eyes widened for a second, and then he looked confused.
“No?” he repeated.
“Correct. No. We don’t need to talk and we definitely don’t need to be alone.” I snarled. Lily reached out and squeezed my hand slowly to remind me to keep my cool.
Ben raised an eyebrow.
“Melanie you are my wife. There is no reason for us to have an audience when discussing our marriage.”
“I’ll be rectifying the wife part of that sentence soon.”
“What does that mean?” he moved towards me.
“It means I want a divorce.”
Lily grimaced and muttered, “So much for the element of surprise.”
“Fuck the element of surprise. He’s had his cock in half the female population of L.A. during our marriage. The only way he could be surprised by me wanting a divorce is if he was literally a moron.”
Both of their jaws dropped, but I had officially given up on playing it ‘cool’.
“Why did you even marry me?” I asked.
“Wh- I love you!” Ben stammered.
I snorted and rose to my feet.
“Look. I can’t do this right now. Angela wasn’t the first and if I hadn’t caught you in the act… she wouldn’t have been the last.” I started to smirk as a positively evil idea hit me. “Good luck figuring out which ones tattled.”
His face paled.
“Get out. Obviously I’m not ready to talk yet.”
He stumbled backwards and looked at me like it was his first time seeing me.
“I- I need to get some of my stuff.” His voice cracked under the pressure.
“Sure. You’ve got fifteen minutes before I start making things uncomfortable.” I walked past him towards the kitchen. “It would be a real shame if the video from the hot tub found it’s way into Peter’s inbox.” I called over my shoulder.
“So… you decided to go scorched earth?” Lily hissed as we heard Ben’s feet race up the stairs.
“I’m going to raze the little kingdom that man built for himself the fucking ground.”