Chapter 3 - Her Husband Had Planned Her Ruin for MonthsAudrey didn’t sleep.
By sunrise, she had consumed four cups of coffee and discovered fourteen separate documents carrying her forged signature.
Roman had moved her to a secured waterfront residence above one of Vale Holdings’ private offices.
She hated that she needed protection.
She hated more that Roman was right about it.
At 7:13 a.m., Audrey found another file.
A power of attorney.
Supposedly signed eight months earlier.
It authorized David to manage investments, property transfers and business transactions on her behalf.
“He planned this before Chloe,” Audrey said.
Roman stood at the window.
“How do you know?”
“The affair started five months ago. This was notarized eight months ago.”
“Fake notary?”
“Probably.”
Audrey stared at the date.
Three days after what would have been her second baby’s due date.
David had taken her to dinner that night.
She had cried in the restaurant bathroom.
He had held her afterward.
She remembered him saying, We’ll be okay.
The memory almost broke her.
Instead, something inside her hardened.
“When did David first approach you?”
Roman answered.
“Seven months ago.”
Audrey gave a humorless laugh.
“So while he was telling me we needed to rebuild our marriage, he was building a way to rob me.”
Roman said nothing.
Audrey looked at him.
“You can stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m going to break.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Roman considered denying it.
He didn’t.
Audrey returned to the documents.
“I won’t.”
“I know.”
That surprised her.
“How?”
“Because yesterday you caught your husband with another woman, discovered financial fraud, survived a break-in and spent the night reading contracts.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not falling apart.”
“No.”
Roman’s voice softened.
“It means you’re falling apart without letting the people who caused it decide where the pieces land.”
Audrey stared at him.
For a feared mafia boss, Roman Vale occasionally said disturbingly human things.
She looked away first.
“Take me to Pier 19.”
Roman sighed.
“We discussed this.”
“No. You said no. I ignored you.”
His mouth almost curved.
“Do you ignore everyone?”
“Mostly men who think sentences become law because they lower their voice.”
One of Roman’s security men looked away quickly.
Roman noticed.
“You’re enjoying this, Caleb.”
“No, sir.”
“Liar.”
Audrey hid a smile.
Roman finally reached for his coat.
“Fine.”
Audrey blinked.
“That worked?”
“No.”
“You’re taking me.”
“I’m taking an engineer to inspect an asset belonging to my company.”
“That engineer is me.”
“I’m aware.”
“So it worked.”
Roman opened the door.
“Get your coat.”
Pier 19 smelled of saltwater, diesel and wet concrete.
Audrey became someone different the moment she stepped onto the site.
Roman noticed immediately.
At home, she had been a betrayed wife.
At the hospital, an angry woman confronting her husband’s mistress.
Here she was an engineer.
Her shoulders straightened.
Her eyes moved constantly.
She studied support columns, deck joints, corrosion patterns and temporary bracing.
Roman followed without interrupting.
After twenty minutes, Audrey stopped beneath a steel platform.
“This beam isn’t on the plans.”
Roman looked up.
“Problem?”
“Maybe.”
She walked thirty feet east.
Then back.
“You said Northpoint is supposed to be a mixed commercial terminal?”
“Yes.”
“This reinforcement doesn’t make sense.”
Roman waited.
Audrey crouched beside a concrete support.
Fresh patchwork covered one section.
She touched it.
Then stood.
“I need the original construction drawings.”
Roman called someone.
Fifteen minutes later, Audrey had rolled blueprints across the hood of a truck.
She compared dimensions.
Then she pointed.
“There.”
Roman leaned closer.
“What?”
“A service corridor.”
“I don’t see one.”
“Exactly.”
Audrey looked toward an old warehouse.
“This building was modified sometime after the original permit. There should be a void between these two foundation walls.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman’s expression changed.
He called Caleb.
“Get the warehouse opened.”
They found the concealed entrance behind stacked pallets.
Beyond it was a narrow concrete room.
Inside were seven locked cases.
Roman opened one.
Cash.
Audrey stared.
Bundles upon bundles.
“How much?”
Caleb checked.
“Maybe four million.”
A second case contained documents.
A third held expensive watches and jewelry.
Roman looked at Audrey.
“This isn’t mine.”
She believed him.
Not because she trusted mafia bosses.
Because Roman looked furious.
Audrey opened one file.
Shipping manifests.
Shell corporations.
Sloane Maritime.
Marcus Vale’s approval codes.
David Hayes’s initials.
Then she saw the dates.
“This has been happening for years.”
Roman’s jaw clenched.
“Yes.”
David had not created the scheme.
He had joined it.
The betrayal inside Roman’s family had been operating long before David arrived.
Caleb’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed instantly.
“Roman.”
“What?”
“We have movement at Mrs. Hayes’s house.”
Audrey stepped closer.
“What movement?”
Caleb looked at her.
“David.”
She stopped breathing.
Roman was already walking.
“Get the cars.”
Audrey grabbed his arm.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“That’s my house.”
“He may be armed.”
“He’s still my husband.”
Roman turned toward her.
“That is not the argument you think it is.”
Audrey refused to release him.
“If David came back, he wants something.”
Roman looked down at her hand.
Then at her face.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Audrey thought of the garbage bags.
The office.
The hidden envelope.
Then she remembered something.
A small fireproof safe beneath the kitchen pantry shelving.
David believed it contained passports and insurance paperwork.
It didn’t.
Audrey had placed something else inside after her grandmother died.
The original deed to the Annapolis property.
And records showing she had never authorized its sale.
Evidence.
“He’s going for my safe.”
They reached the house eighteen minutes later.
The back door was open.
Roman insisted on entering first.
They found David in the kitchen.
He stood beside the island holding Audrey’s fireproof box.
For one terrible moment, nobody moved.
David looked exhausted.
Unshaven.
Wet.
Desperate.
Then his eyes found Audrey.
“Thank God.”
Audrey almost laughed.
“Interesting choice of words.”
David glanced at Roman.
“You brought him.”
“He brought me.”
“Audrey, you don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
David set the box down.
Roman remained near the doorway.
Caleb stood behind him.
David raised his hands.
“I messed up.”
Audrey stared.
“That’s your opening?”
“I was desperate.”
“You stole six hundred and forty thousand dollars from me.”
David looked shocked.
“You know.”
“Yes.”
“I was going to put it back.”
Audrey’s face went cold.
“Every thief says that.”
“I’m not a thief.”
Roman finally spoke.
“You took two million dollars from my company.”
David looked at him.
“That money never left Vale Holdings.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“Explain.”
David swallowed.
“Marcus moved it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman stepped closer.
David backed away.
“I swear.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
Audrey intervened.
“Why forge my name?”
David looked at her.
Something shameful moved across his face.
“Because Marcus needed someone outside the Vale organization.”
“Needed someone for what?”
“To blame.”
Audrey felt sick.
“And you picked your wife.”
“It wasn’t supposed to go this far.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Audrey—”
“You practiced my signature hundreds of times.”
“I was trapped.”
“You slept with Chloe.”
David’s face tightened.
“That was separate.”
The casual cruelty of the sentence silenced the room.
Audrey nodded slowly.
“Thank you.”
David frowned.
“For what?”
“For finally giving me one honest answer.”
She removed her wedding ring.
David’s expression changed.
“Audrey.”
She placed it on the kitchen island.
“We’re done.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I have never meant anything more.”
David stepped toward her.
Roman moved between them so quickly Audrey barely saw it happen.
David stopped.
Roman spoke quietly.
“Take another step toward her and we’re going to have a different conversation.”
David’s fear returned.
The same fear Audrey had seen at 3:25 the previous afternoon.
Now she understood it.
David wasn’t afraid of losing her.
He was afraid of Roman.
Good.
Audrey walked to the safe.
“Why did you come back?”
David hesitated.
“To get the deed.”
“Why?”
No answer.
Roman looked at him.
“David.”
Finally David whispered, “Because Marcus needs the Annapolis property.”
Audrey stared.
“For what?”
“He registered one of the shell corporations there.”
“What shell corporation?”
David looked at Roman.
Then back at Audrey.
“A company that owns the explosives contract for Pier 19.”
Nobody moved.
Audrey felt every hair on her arms rise.
“Explosives?”
David’s voice dropped.
“The opening-night collapse isn’t supposed to look like an accident.”
Roman’s face turned to stone.
May you like
David continued.
“It’s supposed to look like Audrey murdered Roman Vale.”
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