Chapter 3: The Man on the Other End of the Message
I stared at the message for a long time.
Then I typed back: *Who are you?*
The reply came in under a minute.
*"My name is Daniel Reeves.
I've been the CFO of Vance Global for four years.
I was on that call tonight when your husband's screen was still open.
I saw everything.
So did twenty-nine other people."*
I set the phone face-down on the table.
Then I picked it up again.
*"What do you mean it goes beyond the affair?"*
Three dots appeared.
Then: *"Can we meet tomorrow?
Not at the office.
Somewhere public.
I'll explain everything in person.
There are things I can't put in writing."*
I looked at the shareholder agreement still spread across the table.
My father's signature at the bottom, neat and deliberate, the way everything he did was neat and deliberate.
*"Coffee.
Nine a.m.
The Harlow on Clement Street."*
*"I'll be there,"* Daniel wrote back.
*"Mrs.
Vance — bring those documents if you have them.
You're going to need them."*
I didn't sleep.
At seven the next morning, Flynn's key turned in the front door.
I was already dressed, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee I hadn't touched.
The folder was in my bag.
He stopped when he saw me.
He looked like he hadn't slept either.
His tie was loosened, his jacket creased.
He'd spent the night somewhere that wasn't home.
"We need to talk," he said.
"I have somewhere to be."
"Mabel." He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down without being invited.
"Last night got out of hand.
I know that.
But there are things about the company — about the situation — that you don't fully understand."
"What situation?"
"The finances." He leaned forward.
"Vance Global is in a complicated position right now.
There are restructuring conversations happening.
Sensitive conversations.
If this video gets out, if people start asking questions about my personal life, it could destabilize everything."
"You're asking me to stay quiet."
"I'm asking you to think about Clara.
About what happens to this family if the company goes under."
I looked at him across the table.
The man who had told me $1,800 a month was generous.
The man who had paid $3,200 for another woman's apartment without blinking.
"How long has the company been in a complicated position?" I asked.
He hesitated.
"A while."
"While you were paying Selina's rent."
"That's not related."
"How much is a while, Flynn?"
He stood up.
"I'm not here to fight.
I'm here because I want to fix this."
"You can't fix this at the kitchen table." I picked up my bag.
"And you should know — I found my father's documents last night."
The color left his face so completely and so fast that for a moment I thought he might sit back down.
"What documents?"
I walked to the front door.
"Have a good morning."
I heard him call my name twice before the door closed behind me.
Daniel Reeves was already at the Harlow when I arrived.
He was younger than I'd expected — early forties, dark circles under his eyes, a coffee cup he was turning in both hands like he needed something to hold onto.
He stood when he saw me.
"Mrs.
Vance.
Thank you for coming."
"Tell me what you know," I said, sitting down.
He glanced around the room once, then leaned forward.
"The affair is real.
Two years, like he told you.
But the affair isn't the problem." He set his phone on the table between us, screen up.
"This is the problem."
It was a spreadsheet.
Columns of numbers, dates, transfer amounts.
"What am I looking at?"
"Money moving out of Vance Global," he said quietly.
"Not through payroll.
Not through vendor contracts.
Through a series of shell accounts that Selina set up eighteen months ago.
Flynn signed off on every transfer."
My hand went still on the table.
"How much?" I asked.
Daniel looked at me steadily.
"Four point three million dollars.
Over fourteen months."
The coffee shop noise continued around us — cups, voices, the hiss of the espresso machine.
None of it touched the silence between us and that number.
"He's been draining the company," I said.
"He's been draining it into accounts that Selina controls.
We think he's planning to dissolve Vance Global, declare insolvency, and walk away clean with her." Daniel's voice dropped lower.
"Mrs.
Vance, your 34% stake — if the company dissolves under fraud, you lose everything your father built for you.
That's why I reached out."
I opened my bag and placed the shareholder agreement on the table between us.
Daniel looked at it.
Then he looked at me differently than he had thirty seconds before.
"Your father was thorough," he said.
"He was a corporate attorney for thirty-one years." I smoothed the edge of the document.
"What do we do with this?"
Daniel picked up his phone.
"I have a lawyer.
A good one.
And I have fourteen months of transfer records." He paused.
"But Flynn is going to find out you know.
Probably today, after whatever you said to him this morning."
"I told him I found my father's documents."
Daniel set the phone down.
"Then we don't have much time."
My own phone buzzed on the table.
A text from Flynn.
*"We need to talk about your father's stake.
Come home, Mabel.
Now."*
I turned the phone so Daniel could read it.
He read it.
Then he looked up.
"He knows exactly what those documents mean."
"Yes," I said.
May you like
"He does."
"Which means he's already thinking about how to get them away from you."
