Chapter 5 - THE REPO MAN
The following week was a blur of legal filings and physical repossessions.
Because the divorce settlement was now under review for fraud,
the assets Daniel thought he owned were in a state of limbo.
I hired a team of professional recovery agents—the kind of men who don't take ‘no’ for an answer.
First,
they went to the penthouse.
Daniel had tried to move in there with Vanessa,
claiming it was part of his ‘lifestyle allowance.’
The recovery team changed the locks while his clothes were still in the dryer.
They boxed up his designer suits,
his collection of rare watches,
and his rows of expensive shoes.
Everything was brought to a warehouse to be appraised.
I stood in the center of the empty living room,
looking at the view of Central Park.
It was a beautiful view,
but it felt cold.
I realized I didn't want this place anymore.
It was stained with the memory of his lies.
“Sell it,”
I told the real estate agent standing beside me.
“Every square inch.”
“But Mrs. Hayes,”
the man stammered,
“the market is down.”
“I don't care about the market,”
I said.
“I want the money in the corporate account by Friday.”
Next came the cars.
Daniel loved his Italian sports cars more than anything.
He treated them like trophies.
When the repo truck pulled his Ferrari out of the driveway of his mother’s estate,
Daniel was standing on the porch,
screaming and waving his arms.
The video was captured by a neighbor and went viral within an hour.
It was the ultimate humiliation for a man who lived for optics.
I watched the video in my office,
not with joy,
but with a sense of completion.
He was being stripped of the armor he used to intimidate the world.
Without the cars,
the penthouse,
and the expensive suits,
Daniel was just a man who didn't know how to work for a living.
My father joined me,
watching the screen.
“He’s losing his mind,
Emily.”
“Good,”
I said.
“Maybe in the chaos,
he’ll tell us where the rest of the money is.”
“We’re still missing five million from the 2022 expansion fund.”
My father tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“He didn't spend it.”
“He’s too cautious for that.”
“He’s buried it somewhere.”
“A place where he thinks we can't reach.”
I looked at the map of Daniel’s travels over the last year.
He had made three trips to a small town in Vermont.
It was an unlikely place for a man like him—no luxury hotels,
no high-end restaurants.
“Vermont,”
I whispered.
“What’s in Vermont?”
“His grandfather’s old cabin,”
my father remembered.
“It was left to him in a private trust,
outside of your marriage.”
I grabbed my coat.
“Let’s go.”
“If I know Daniel,”
“he’s not the type to trust a bank he can't control.”
“He’s the type to trust a floorboard.”
The drive to Vermont was long and quiet.
The landscape changed from the jagged skyline of the city to the soft,
rolling hills of the countryside.
It was peaceful,
the kind of peace Daniel could never appreciate.
When we arrived at the cabin,
it was a dilapidated shack,
hidden deep in the woods.
It looked like the kind of place where secrets go to die.
We didn't need a key;
the door was hanging by a single hinge.
Inside,
it smelled of pine and damp earth.
My father used a professional-grade metal detector,
sweeping it over the uneven floor.
In the corner,
under a heavy iron stove,
the machine began to wail.
We pried up the boards and found a waterproof safe.
It didn't contain gold or cash.
It contained a ledger.
A physical,
handwritten ledger of every bribe he had paid,
every person he had bought,
and every account he had hidden.
It was his insurance policy.
May you like
And now,
it was his death warrant.
