Chapter 4: How Long the Lie Had Lasted
Six weeks after our wedding.
I repeated it in my mind the way you repeat a number that doesn't add up.
Six weeks.
We had still been sending thank-you notes for the gifts.
I had still been learning how to spell Vance without thinking about it.
"Show me," I said.
Phoebe pulled a second document from the folder.
Bank transfer records.
A subsidiary account registered to a shell company — but the beneficiary name was Selina Marsh.
The amounts started small.
Then grew.
Then became a monthly figure large enough to be a salary.
"He was supporting her before the ink on your marriage certificate was dry," Phoebe said.
I didn't say anything.
I looked at the numbers.
The dates.
The pattern of a man who had never intended to stop.
"Did he marry me knowing?" I asked.
"The first transfer was forty-three days after the wedding," Phoebe said carefully.
"Whether it started before — I don't have proof of that yet."
"Yet," I said.
"Yet," she confirmed.
I handed the document back.
My hands were steady.
That surprised me — not because I was strong, but because I had already used up whatever part of me was capable of being shocked.
What was left was something quieter and much more dangerous.
"How did you find this in one night?" I asked.
"I didn't find it in one night," Phoebe said.
"I found it in four hours.
Because I knew where to look.
Because men like Flynn always use the same structures.
Same shell company patterns.
Same account routing.
Same assistants who think they're protected." She paused.
"His assistant, by the way, has already been contacted."
I looked at her.
"Dana?"
"Dana Reyes.
Yes." Phoebe's expression didn't change.
"She's been managing the transfers for two years.
She knows everything.
And she is currently deciding whether her loyalty to Flynn Vance is worth what's coming."
"What did you offer her?"
"Nothing yet.
I simply explained her exposure." Phoebe folded her hands.
"People make interesting choices when they understand their own legal position."
My daughter stirred against my chest.
I shifted her gently, and she settled again without waking.
"Flynn will move fast," I said.
"He'll try to find a way to challenge the trust transfer before it's fully recorded."
"He'll try," Phoebe agreed.
"He has until close of business Thursday.
After that, the recording is permanent and the window closes."
"Thursday," I said.
"That's two days."
"Yes."
"What do we need to protect?"
Phoebe opened a third page.
A checklist, already half-completed, in her precise handwriting.
She walked me through it — account freezes, notification filings, a secondary injunction she had prepared as a precaution.
Each item had a status beside it.
Most were already done.
I listened.
I asked questions.
I made two decisions she hadn't anticipated, and she noted them without argument.
Outside the window, Manhattan moved at its usual pace.
Taxis.
Scaffolding.
A courier on a bicycle cutting between two black cars.
The city had no idea and didn't care, which was exactly right.
When Phoebe finally stood to leave, she paused at the door.
"You should sleep," she said.
"I will."
"Mabel." She turned back.
Her voice was different now — not the lawyer's voice, but something older and quieter.
"I've handled a lot of these.
Wealthy husbands.
Hidden assets.
Women who found out too late." She looked at me directly.
"You are the first one I've seen who found out in the delivery room and still had a plan by midnight."
I didn't know what to say to that.
"Sleep," she said again.
And left.
I looked at my daughter.
She was so small.
She had Flynn's jawline — I could already see it — and that fact sat in me like a stone.
She would carry his face and my name.
I had already decided that much.
Whatever she inherited from him, she would not inherit his choices.
My phone lit up on the nightstand.
A message from a number I didn't recognize.
I opened it.
*You should know that Flynn called his father an hour ago.
His father is flying in from London tonight.*
No name.
No context.
Just those two sentences.
I stared at the screen.
Reginald Vance.
Flynn's father.
The man who had built the original empire before handing it to his son.
The man who had looked at me at our wedding with an expression I had always read as approval, but now wondered about.
I typed back: *Who is this?*
Three dots appeared.
Then: *Someone who thinks you deserve to know what's coming.*
The dots disappeared.
No further message.
I set the phone down.
Looked at the ceiling.
Then at my daughter.
May you like
Reginald Vance was on a plane.
And someone inside Flynn's circle had just chosen a different side.
