Chapter 5 - THE SIGNATURE
The answer was sitting in a file I had never seen.
A loan agreement.
Seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Borrower: Vale Strategic Holdings.
Collateral section: a percentage interest tied to our Manhattan residence.
My name appeared at the bottom.
Except I had never signed it.
“That’s not my signature.”
Rebecca didn’t react.
“Certain?”
“I know my own name.”
Martin zoomed in.
The signature looked close.
Very close.
But the A leaned wrong.
I always crossed my final y.
This one didn’t.
Dad stood behind me.
“Forgery?”
Rebecca held up a hand.
“Possible forgery. We’ll have an examiner assess it.”
My palms went cold.
“Who is the lender?”
Martin scrolled.
“Briar Capital Partners.”
I knew the name.
Dominic had taken me to dinner with their managing partner, Grant Holloway, six months earlier.
Grant had toasted Dominic.
“To the next billion.”
I had laughed because I thought it was a joke.
Maybe Grant hadn’t.
“Did Grant know?”
“We don’t know,” Rebecca said.
“Can we call him?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if Dominic falsified your signature, I don’t want anyone cleaning up the trail.”
My phone chimed.
A photograph.
Dominic had sent it.
A nursery.
Leo’s nursery.
Below it:
I’m preparing for my son to come home.
Another message appeared.
You can make this easy or ugly. Your choice.
I stared at the screen.
Rebecca took a screenshot.
“Good.”
“How is that good?”
“Because men like Dominic tend to believe texts disappear emotionally just because they disappear from their own screen.”
Dad leaned toward me.
“You don’t have to read his messages yourself.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I spent years letting other people tell me what he meant.”
My throat tightened.
“I want to see what he actually says.”
That afternoon, Rebecca filed for temporary custody arrangements and emergency protections regarding jointly held assets.
Not because Dominic had been physically violent.
Because he was moving money.
Trying to alter access to property.
And threatening to come find me while demanding Leo.
By evening, Dominic’s attorney finally contacted Rebecca.
His name was Adrian Mercer.
Expensive.
Aggressive.
According to Rebecca, excellent in court.
Adrian’s first letter accused me of “weaponizing family connections.”
I read it twice.
“Family connections?”
Dad took the page.
“He doesn’t know who I am either.”
“No.”
“Good.”
I stared at him.
“Why good?”
“Because then everything they’ve done so far is honest.”
That sentence stayed with me.
At 7:40 p.m., someone rang the front bell.
Security called upstairs.
“Ms. Brooks, there’s a woman here asking for you.”
“Name?”
The guard paused.
“Natalie Ames.”
I looked at Martin.
“N.A.”
His eyes widened.
Dad stood.
Rebecca immediately said, “Nobody talks without me present.”
Five minutes later, a woman in her early thirties entered the sitting room.
She looked terrified.
And pregnant.
Very pregnant.
She stared at me.
“You’re Audrey?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She wrapped both hands around her stomach.
Then she said the sentence that split my marriage open in a completely different way.
May you like
“Because Dominic told me you were already divorced.”
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