The digital clock on the bedside table flashed 2:00 AM.
Julian lay beside me, his chest rising and falling in a steady, rhythmic sleep. The faint scent of citrus—mandarin and grapefruit—still clung to his skin from the car ride. It was her scent. Mia’s scent.
I pushed the heavy duvet off my legs.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and slipped out of the bedroom. The hallway floorboards were freezing against my bare feet. I moved past the guest rooms, navigating the dark house by memory, and stepped into Julian’s private study.
I shut the heavy oak door behind me. The latch clicked softly.
I dialed a number I had memorized that afternoon.
"You're calling late, Mrs. Thorne," Victor’s raspy voice came through the speaker.
"My husband is asleep," I whispered, pressing the phone tight against my ear. "Walk me through it."
"You shouldn't be doing this while he's in the house."
"I don't have a choice, Victor. He takes this laptop to the office every morning. It’s locked in his briefcase by six. It’s now or never."
"If he catches you in there—"
"He won't." I walked over to the massive mahogany desk. "I'm opening it."
I lifted the lid of the sleek silver machine. The screen flared to life, casting a harsh, bluish-white glow across my pale face.
"He has a primary password," Victor noted. "Do you know it?"
"He changed it two weeks ago."
"Then we use the backdoor sequence. Press F8 while the system boots."
I tapped the key repeatedly. The screen flickered. "Done. It's asking for the admin override."
"Type in the backup passcode I texted you."
I quickly punched in the long string of alphanumeric characters. The lock icon vanished. The desktop loaded, displaying a perfectly organized grid of folders.
"I'm in," I told him.
"Good. Work fast. Open the C drive."
"It's open. What am I looking for?"
"A hidden folder. He won't label it 'finances' or 'offshore accounts'. Look for something innocuous."
I dragged the mouse down the list of directories. "I see system files. App data. Nothing strange."
"Dig deeper, Clara. Go into the user profile. Check the local app data."
I clicked through the folders. The silence of the house pressed in on me, broken only by the faint hum of the laptop’s cooling fan.
"Wait," I murmured. "There's a folder here named 'Archive_77'."
"Open it."
"It requires another password."
"Try his old one."
"Access denied."
"Try a significant date."
"His mother's birthday didn't work." I chewed on the inside of my cheek. "Our anniversary didn't work."
"What about the twins' due date?"
"No." I stared at the blinking cursor. A sick intuition twisted in my gut. I typed in Mia's name and the current year. *Mia2024*.
Incorrect password.
"What did you try?" Victor asked.
"Nothing. Give me a second."
I thought about the hospital room. The ultrasound monitor. The way he looked at her stomach. The way the doctor spoke.
I typed: *BabyA*.
The folder unlocked.
"You got it?"
"Yes," I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I'm looking at a list of spreadsheets."
"Find the most recent one."
I double-clicked a file named *M_Fund*.
A massive electronic statement filled the screen. Rows and columns of dates, routing numbers, and offshore bank codes stretched down the page.
"Victor, I'm looking at wire transfers."
"Read the amounts to me."
"Fifty thousand. A hundred thousand." I scrolled down, my eyes darting across the glowing numbers. "Another two hundred thousand."
"What's the origin account?"
I checked the top of the column. "It ends in 4409."
"That's your joint savings," Victor confirmed. "The one tied to the real estate trust."
"He's draining it."
"Keep scrolling. What's the destination?"
"A bank in the Cayman Islands. The account holder is listed as a corporate entity. Shell Holdings LLC."
"A shell company," Victor said, his tone grim. "Classic asset hiding. He's washing the money through the islands so you can't touch it during a divorce."
"Can you trace who actually owns the shell?"
"Not easily. That's the point of the Caymans. But if we have this ledger, we have proof of the transfers. How much is gone in total?"
I dragged the scroll bar to the very bottom of the document. The final sum sat highlighted in a bold, red font.
Three million dollars.
"Three million," I whispered.
"Over what time frame?"
"Three months."
My jaw locked. I pressed my molars together, grinding them hard. The friction sent a sharp ache up into my temples. I bit down harder, the flesh of my inner cheek catching between my teeth.
A warm, metallic taste flooded my tongue. Rust and copper. Blood.
"He's preparing to leave you with nothing," Victor stated.
"He thinks I'm stupid."
"He thinks you're distracted by the pregnancy."
"He bought her a black card today," I said, my voice dropping to a harsh rasp. "I watched him kiss her stomach while our money pays for her nursery. That three million was supposed to be for our children's trust."
"Focus, Clara. You need to export that ledger. Send it to the secure server I set up for you."
"I'm doing it now." I highlighted the file and dragged it into the encrypted portal Victor had provided. A green checkmark appeared on the screen.
"Got it," Victor said. "Now, you have a choice to make."
"What choice?" I asked. I swallowed the blood pooling in my mouth.
"You can leave the file there. Let him keep thinking he's getting away with it until we strike with the divorce papers."
"Or?"
"Or you hit the one-click wipe on that folder. It corrupts the ledger entirely. He loses his tracking of the offshore accounts."
"He'll know someone was in his computer."
"Yes. It will force his hand. He might panic and make a mistake. He might try to move the rest of the funds too quickly, which leaves a paper trail we can easily follow."
I stared at the screen. The mouse cursor sat perfectly still in the center of the spreadsheet.
"Clara?"
"I'm thinking."
I moved the mouse. The little white arrow glided upward, hovering right over the red 'Delete All' icon at the top of the directory.
"If I delete this, he'll tear the house apart looking for answers," I said.
"Are you ready for that confrontation?"
"I'm ready to watch him squirm."
My finger rested on the left mouse button.
*Thud.*
I froze.
*Thud. Thud.*
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway. They weren't muffled by slippers. It was the solid, heavy tread of bare heels striking the hardwood floor.
"Victor," I whispered, panic spiking in my chest.
"What is it?"
"Someone is in the hall."
"Close the laptop. Now."
I didn't move. The cursor remained locked on the destroy button.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence stretched through the dark study.
Then, the brass doorknob turned down half an inch.
