Chapter 2 - The Ghost in the Machine
The hallway outside the penthouse suddenly flooded with light,
and the high-pitched hum of a high-decibel security siren began to pulse through the building.
I watched the monitor as Ronald and Priscilla covered their ears,
their faces distorted by the sudden,
piercing noise.
At the same moment,
heavy steel shutters slid down over the interior of the door,
sealing me inside a vault that not even a professional team could penetrate in under an hour.
I walked back to my kitchen,
pouring myself a fresh cup of coffee,
ignoring the chaos on the other side of the wood.
I sat at the marble island,
opening my laptop to a screen that would have made Ronald’s heart stop if he could see it.
It was a terminal showing the closing prices of a dozen different tech stocks,
all of them held by a venture capital firm called 'Aletheia Holdings.'
Ronald thought I was a consultant for Aletheia.
He thought I worked for a boss named 'Mr. Vance' who lived in Zurich.
What he never suspected was that 'Aletheia' was the Greek word for 'Truth,'
and that I was the sole owner of the firm.
I hadn't just been "earning" a salary for the last five years.
I had been liquidating the company I founded in my early twenties,
shifting the millions into private trusts that were shielded by pre-marital agreements Ronald had signed without reading.
He had been so arrogant,
so convinced that I was a "lucky" girl who had found a good job,
that he hadn't even bothered to look at the name on the company's incorporation papers.
He was too busy showing off the car I had bought for him,
telling his friends at the country club about his "shrewd investments."
The secret was that Ronald had been broke for three years.
His consulting business had failed during the second year of our marriage,
but I had quietly funneled money into his accounts through "anonymous clients" to keep his ego from bruising.
I did it because I loved him then.
I did it because I wanted him to be happy.
But then Priscilla moved in,
and the "love of my life" turned into a spoiled child who treated me like a bottomless ATM.
I watched the security feed again.
Two uniformed officers were now standing in the hallway,
their hands on their holsters.
The locksmith was already on his knees,
hands behind his head,
explaining that he was just a contractor.
Ronald was trying to explain himself,
gesturing wildly toward the door,
looking like a madman in his five-thousand-dollar suit.
“Officer,
you don't understand!”
Ronald yelled over the siren.
“I live here!
This is my home!”
The officer looked at a tablet in his hand,
which was receiving a direct data dump from my security system.
“Mr. Cobb,”
the officer said,
his voice amplified by a megaphone.
“According to the deed and the restraining order filed thirty minutes ago,
you have no legal right to be on this floor.”
Ronald’s jaw dropped.
“Restraining order?
That’s impossible!”
He didn't know that the moment I walked out of the courthouse yesterday,
I had my legal team file an emergency protective order based on the harassment he had directed at me via text and phone calls the night before.
May you like
I was three steps ahead of him,
and he was still trying to figure out how to start the race.
