Chapter 7 - The Desperate Ploy
Victoria’s attorney looked terrified. “Victoria, be quiet! Don't say another word!”
“No!” she shrieked, backing away from the detectives. “Michael! Michael, tell them! Look at me! We were going to spend our honeymoon in the Amalfi Coast! We had a future! You loved me!”
Michael looked at her for a long, agonizing moment.
“I loved an idea, Victoria,” he said, his tone devoid of anger, left only with an immense, exhausting sadness. “I loved someone who didn't exist. The real you is a nightmare.”
Victoria’s face twisted into something feral. “You think you’re so righteous? You think your precious Emily is a saint? Ask her about five years ago! Ask her why she left Chicago!”
I went rigid.
Julian’s eyes flicked to me with subtle curiosity. Michael frowned.
“Victoria, shut up,” I warned, my voice dropping.
“Tell them, Emmy!” she sneered, resorting to the mocking childhood nickname she knew I hated. “Tell them how you ruined your first business partner! Tell Michael how you drove your fiancé away!”
“She didn't drive anyone away,” a voice rang out from the front door.
Grandma Rose walked in, supported by a polished walnut cane, accompanied by an older man with gray hair and glasses.
When Victoria saw the man with glasses, she gasped, stumbling backward against a wooden crate.
“Arthur?” she whispered.
Arthur Bradley was my former business partner from Chicago. Five years ago, I had lost my first independent design studio after thirty thousand dollars mysteriously vanished from our accounts, causing our suppliers to default. My former fiancé—who was Arthur’s brother—had accused me of fraud, broke our engagement, and left the city.
I had spent five years believing I was careless, that I had failed, that I wasn't cut out for business.
“Hello, Victoria,” Arthur Bradley said quietly. “Miss Rose Carter invited me to fly in from O'Hare this morning. Vance Legal was kind enough to show me the forensic digital footprint from the Chicago IP addresses five years ago.”
Arthur looked at me, his eyes filled with profound regret.
“Emily… it wasn't you. It was never you.”
Arthur pulled a certified file from his briefcase. “Victoria had remote administrative access to our QuickBooks via your personal laptop, which she borrowed during Thanksgiving that year. She funneled the funds into an offshore PayPal account, made it look like Emily had authorized the withdrawals, and sent anonymous tip-offs to my brother’s phone.”
The warehouse went dead silent.
I stood frozen. Five years of shame. Five years of feeling like a failure. Five years of waking up in a cold sweat wondering how I had made such a catastrophic accounting mistake that ruined my first love and destroyed my early career.
It hadn't been a mistake.
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It had been an execution.
***
