June spoke gently.
“I understand.”
We reviewed emergency plans for ten more minutes.
Then came an unexpected request.
“The investigators want to speak with you before you leave.”
“About the financial case?”
“And the collision.”
My throat constricted.
“Are they certain?”
“They’ve corroborated significant portions of the driver’s account. They also recovered additional payment records.”
I observed my reflection in the window.
Seven years of marriage.
Seven years beside Grant in bed.
Now recalling our beginning frightened me.
“June,” I whispered, “what exactly did he do?”
She hesitated.
“He found out who you were before you started dating.”
I shut my eyes.
“He knew about my family?”
“Yes.”
“But he always said he didn’t care about money.”
“According to the evidence, he’d researched the Wexler family holdings for months.”
I pressed my temples.
June continued.
“Grant was deeply in debt when he met you. He’d failed at two previous businesses and had creditors pursuing him.”
I remembered his cramped basement flat.
The broken heater.
The way he’d joked that he couldn’t afford a decent dinner.
I mistook it for striving.
Apparently, he was researching me.
“He knew your regular driving route,” June said. “And he contacted a commercial driver through an intermediary.”
Nausea rose.
“The truck?”
“Yes.”
I recalled the headlights.
The wet pavement.
The enormous shape crossing the highway.
The impact.
The terrible crushing sound of metal.
And Grant’s voice screaming my name.
“He instructed the driver to force your vehicle off the road,” June explained. “The driver says Grant wanted the crash to appear accidental.”
“Did he want me dead?”
“The recording suggests he knew you could be killed and accepted that risk. The exact charges will be determined by prosecutors.”
Her words barely reached me.
I still pictured Grant hauling me from the wreckage.
His hand bleeding.
His face covered in rain.
He’d cried at the hospital.
He’d promised never to let anything happen to me again.
I’d loved him for saving me.
Who creates another person’s terror to play hero?
“There’s more,” June said.
I wanted to disconnect.
I wished I could undo entering the café where we met seven years before.
Still, I listened.
“The driver continued receiving payments through a company associated with Grant. The payments stopped recently, and he became concerned.”
“Concerned about what?”
“That Grant might arrange to silence him.”
I stared out the window.
“So he came forward.”
“Yes. His attorney contacted investigators. The case expanded from there.”
I sensed paralyzed.
My supposed rescuer kept paying the driver who endangered me.
And whenever I questioned his behavior, he’d show me the scar on his hand.
Remember what I did for you, Leah.
It was no loving reminder.
It was leverage.
Leverage I’d tolerated for seven years.
The building’s revolving doors opened across the plaza.
Two federal agents led Grant out.
His hands were handcuffed behind him.
His tie sagged.
His hair was tousled.
He scarcely resembled the confident man who expelled me less than an hour before.
Employees fell silent.
Some lifted phones.
Grant saw the black sedan.
He saw me through its open back window.
“LEAH!”
His shout crossed the plaza.
“LEAH, PLEASE!”
The agents kept moving.
Grant twisted my way.
“THAT’S MY WIFE!”
An agent restrained him.
Grant spoke urgently, more softly.
“Please. Just let me talk to her for thirty seconds.”
The lead agent glanced at me.
I checked June’s text.
You are under no obligation to engage.
I knew that.
Still, I needed Grant to understand something.
I spoke through the window.
“What do you want?”
Grant’s face transformed.
Hope lit his eyes.
“Leah, sweetheart, thank God.”
He edged nearer.
The agent restrained him.
“Please listen to me. I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“I was angry. Sloane means nothing. I swear.”
I eyed him.
“You announced our divorce in front of fourteen executives.”
“I wasn’t thinking!”
“You tried to take my shares.”
“I’ll give you everything!”
His voice broke.
“The company. The house. All of it. Just call your people and fix this.”
I waited.
He began crying.
“Please, Leah. You know I love you.”
I recalled the basement apartment.
The soup I made when he was sick.
The years I’d spent protecting his pride.
Then I remembered the highway.
The headlights.
The wreck.
And the scar he used to remind me that I owed him my life.
“Grant,” I said, “I spoke with someone today.”
He swallowed.
“Who?”
“Evan Rourke.”
He froze.
His face drained of color.
“The truck driver.”
Grant stopped breathing for a moment.
Then he whispered something I could barely hear.
“He’s dead.”
I went cold.
“No, Grant.”
I leaned slightly toward the window.
“He’s alive.”
Grant stared at me.
“And he gave the investigators the recordings.”
For the first time in seven years, I saw real fear in him.
PART 5 — THE MAN WHO CREATED MY NIGHTMARE
Grant opened his mouth soundlessly.
Agents flanked him.
Dozens of workers watched across the plaza.
My husband seemed aware only of me.
“Leah,” he whispered, “whatever he told you—”
“He gave investigators the payment records.”
“He’s lying.”
“And the audio recordings.”
Grant swallowed.
I continued.
“The first payment came from an account connected to your old business. The later ones were routed through Atlantic Fleet Services.”
His eyes widened.
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently, not impossible enough.”
He shook his head repeatedly.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
A familiar look briefly crossed his face.
Calculation.
His contract-negotiating expression.
When deceiving investors.
When persuading me his cruelty benefited our future.
“The accident wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” he whispered.
Cold swept through me.
He recognized his slip.
His face contorted.
“Wait. That’s not what I meant.”
I stared at him.
“What was supposed to happen, Grant?”
“Leah, please.”
“Was the truck supposed to frighten me? Was it supposed to force me off the road? Or were you hoping I’d be seriously injured?”
He looked toward the agents.
Then back at me.
“I was supposed to be there before anyone else.”
The words hit harder than shouting.
He’d orchestrated it.
Not only the crash.
The rescue.
The moment that convinced me he was extraordinarily brave.
“You wanted to be my hero,” I said.
Grant’s eyes watered.
“I loved you.”
“No.”
“I did!”
“You loved what you thought I could give you.”
He shook his head fiercely.
“That’s not fair!”
I eyed the faded scar across his hand.
For seven years, I considered it proof of love.
Now it exposed an elaborate stunt gone catastrophically wrong.
“You could have killed me.”
His mouth quivered.
“I didn’t want you dead.”
“You hired someone to drive a truck into my car.”
“I didn’t think it would be that bad!”
His voice rose.
“I thought I’d pull you out, you’d see how much I cared, and everything would work out!”
The lead agent instructed Grant to stop talking and reminded him of his right to silence.
Grant finally stopped.
He’d already shattered my last illusion about the marriage.
I leaned against the leather seat.
There was no satisfaction.
No rush of triumph.
Only grief.
The husband I imagined had never existed.
He was a fabrication.
I’d funded his creator’s life for seven years.
Grant stared at me through the open window.
“Leah, please don’t leave me like this.”
I eyed him.
“Like what?”
“Alone.”
I recalled nights spent awaiting his return.
The dinners that went cold.
The anniversaries he forgot.
His unanswered messages during weekends with Sloane.
“You’ve been leaving me alone for years,” I said.
His face crumpled.
“Just help me one last time.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Please!”
“Your attorneys can deal with the charges. The court can decide what happens to your assets.”
“And the company?”
“I’m going to do what I can for the employees.”
Hope flashed across his face.
“So you’ll save Rowan Works?”
“Not for you.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“If any part of the business survives, it will survive without you.”
Grant stared at me.
“You can’t take my company.”
I almost laughed.
After everything, he still feared losing ownership most.
“Grant, you tried to give away my thirty-two percent this morning. You don’t get to lecture me about taking what belongs to someone else.”
He attempted to reply.
I shut the window.
The agent led him to the waiting vehicle.
For the first time after we met, I ignored him calling after me.
I thought it finished.
Another disturbance erupted at the entrance.
Two agents brought Sloane outside.
Her immaculate blond hair hung loose around her face.
She was crying.
Her hands were cuffed.
The complaint alleged she knowingly submitted false lender certifications and received concealed payments via a Grant-linked consultancy.
She saw Grant.
The scene shifted.
“YOU PROMISED ME!”
Her shriek pierced the plaza.
Grant turned.
Sloane resisted the agents.
“You said the company was going public! You said we’d be rich!”
“Sloane, stop talking!”
“You told me the invoices were fine!”
“Sloane!”
“You forged the figures and made me approve them!”
Grant turned scarlet.
“Shut your mouth!”
Her sobbing intensified.
“You ruined my life!”
I observed them through the glass.
That morning, she smiled from my chair while my husband tried to erase me.
Now she looked at him only to accuse him.
Triumph eluded me.
The ugliness exhausted me.
My phone rang once more.
Naomi.
“The board has voted to place Grant on administrative leave,” she said. “They’re discussing an independent restructuring process.”
“Good.”
“His attorneys are already trying to contact your representatives.”
“Everything goes through June.”
“Understood.”
I observed workers gathering outside.
“Have we identified the facilities that can continue operating?”
“Two manufacturing sites and the distribution division appear viable. We’re reviewing the contracts.”
“And payroll?”
“We’re arranging a proposal for emergency financing, subject to the appropriate approvals.”
I shut my eyes.
“Thank you.”
Naomi paused.
“Leah, you should come to the family office.”
