Chapter 8 - HIS SISTER’S FAVOR
Paige arrived at Rebecca’s office with an attorney.
That alone told me Dominic had been telling at least part of the truth.
His younger sister looked nothing like the woman who had laughed in the SUV.
No designer coat.
No smug smile.
She looked terrified.
Her attorney spoke first.
“My client is willing to cooperate under certain conditions.”
Rebecca sat across from him.
“This is a divorce matter, not a prosecutor’s office.”
“I understand.”
“Then let your client speak.”
Paige stared at me.
“Dominic asked me to sign your name.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“Why?”
“He said it was paperwork you had approved but couldn’t sign because you were pregnant and sick.”
“I wasn’t sick.”
“I know that now.”
“You saw me every week.”
Her eyes filled.
“I didn’t think.”
“No. You didn’t.”
She flinched.
“When?”
“About three months ago.”
“Where?”
“His office.”
“Which documents?”
She looked toward her lawyer.
Then back at me.
“Three.”
Rebecca’s pen stopped.
“We know about one loan agreement,” she said. “What were the other two?”
Paige swallowed.
“One was something about the apartment.”
“And the third?”
“I don’t know.”
“You signed my name without reading it?”
“I thought Dominic had permission!”
“Did you ask me?”
“No.”
“Then why would you think that?”
Paige’s face hardened suddenly.
“Because Dominic said you owed him!”
The room went silent.
“Owed him what?”
“Everything!”
She was crying now.
“He said he spent years taking care of you while you acted like some princess from a middle-class family. He said your inheritance should have been shared because he turned you into somebody.”
I stared at her.
Then, unexpectedly, I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because I finally saw the whole thing.
Dominic had married a woman he believed came from an ordinary family.
And he still thought I was beneath him.
He had never needed my father’s identity to resent me.
He had built the resentment himself.
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Paige. The third document.”
Paige wiped her face.
“I only remember one phrase.”
“What phrase?”
“Beneficial ownership.”
Martin, sitting in the corner, looked up sharply.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca slid several company names toward her.
Paige shook her head.
Then stopped at one.
Briar Capital.
“That.”
My pulse jumped.
“You signed something for the lender?”
“I think so.”
Rebecca stood.
“We need the complete closing package.”
Within two hours, Briar Capital’s counsel sent it.
The third document was not about the apartment.
It was worse.
It purported to pledge my interest in a family investment account established years before my marriage.
Value:
$3.8 million.
Dad read the number without expression.
I felt numb.
“He tried to pledge nearly four million dollars?”
Rebecca’s voice was quiet.
“He may have already attempted to.”
My phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
A single message.
Mrs. Vale, this is Grant Holloway from Briar Capital. We need to speak immediately. Your husband is trying to draw another $1.2 million against the collateral today.
I looked at Rebecca.
She grabbed her coat.
“Now,” she said.
And suddenly this wasn’t about ending my marriage.
May you like
It was about stopping Dominic before the banks closed.
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