Chapter 2 - The Secrets in the Safe
The drive back to Cherry Hills Village was a blur of rain and streetlights.
My hands were steady on the steering wheel,
even though my heart was racing like a trapped bird.
The house was silent,
a cavernous monument to a marriage that had been a lie.
I bypassed the master bedroom,
the place where I had caught them,
and went straight to Kenneth’s private study.
The room smelled of expensive leather and old bourbon.
I moved the heavy mahogany desk chair aside,
peeling back the corner of the Persian rug.
There was the safe,
cold and metallic,
bolted into the floorboards.
I knelt down,
my fingers trembling slightly as I turned the dial.
08...
14...
22...
The mechanism clicked,
a sound that felt like a gunshot in the quiet room.
I pulled the heavy door open,
expecting to find cash or perhaps more jewelry for his mistresses.
Instead,
I found a thick stack of medical files.
My name was on the top one.
I frowned,
pulling the folder into the light of the desk lamp.
It was from my OB-GYN,
Dr. Aris,
a man who had been Kenneth’s close friend since college.
For three years,
Kenneth and I had been trying to conceive.
We had gone to countless appointments,
taken dozens of tests,
and endured the heartbreak of negative results.
Dr. Aris had always told me that my hormone levels were the problem.
He had prescribed me "fertility supplements" that I took every single morning.
I opened the folder and felt the world tilt on its axis.
Inside were the real lab results.
My hormone levels were perfect.
I was,
and always had been,
perfectly healthy.
Then,
I found the chemical analysis of the "supplements" Kenneth had been giving me.
They weren't fertility drugs.
They were high-dose,
long-term contraceptives,
disguised in custom-made capsules.
He had been secretly drugging me for years,
ensuring that I could never carry his child.
I felt a wave of nausea so strong I had to lean against the desk.
The man I slept next to,
the man I trusted with my life,
had stolen my choice to be a mother.
He had watched me cry over every negative pregnancy test,
holding me and whispering that "it would happen eventually,"
while he was the very person preventing it.
But why?
I kept digging through the safe,
my movements now frantic and desperate.
At the bottom,
beneath the medical files,
was a series of corporate contracts.
They were labeled "Rollins Global - Project Phoenix."
As I read through the documents,
the pieces of the puzzle began to click into place.
Kenneth hadn't just been cheating on me;
he had been planning a hostile takeover of my family’s company.
The contracts showed that he had been selling our proprietary trade secrets,
our logistics algorithms and client lists,
to our biggest competitor in China.
He was devaluing the company from the inside,
driving the stock price down so he could buy it out using a shell company.
And the shell company was registered in Maya’s name.
My brother’s wife wasn't just his mistress;
she was his business partner in crime.
The reason he didn't want me pregnant was simple.
A child would have complicated the divorce.
A child would have given me more leverage in a settlement.
A child would have tied him to me forever,
and he wanted to be free to take the money and run once the company collapsed.
I sat on the floor of the study,
surrounded by the wreckage of my life.
The betrayal of the affair was nothing compared to this.
This was a systematic destruction of my body,
my family,
and my legacy.
I looked at the clock.
It was 4:30 a.m.
The surgery to separate them would be over soon.
They would be in recovery,
drowsy and vulnerable.
I stood up,
my legs feeling like lead,
but my mind becoming sharper than it had ever been.
I wasn't just going to divorce him.
I was going to dismantle him.
I picked up the phone and dialed a number I hadn't called in years.
"Uncle Thomas?"
I said when the voice answered.
"It’s Sabrina."
"I need you to call an emergency board meeting for 9:00 a.m."
May you like
"And tell the legal team to prepare for a criminal referral."
"The war has just begun."
