Chapter 3: The Trojan Horse
Four days after the storm, I returned to the Palisades.
I had carefully curated my appearance. I wore an oversized, drab gray cashmere sweater that swallowed my frame. I skipped the concealer, allowing the dark, bruised circles beneath my eyes to dominate my pale face. I looked exactly as they expected: a shattered, dependent woman crawling back to her abusers.
The moment the heavy front door clicked open, Carter bolted from the study. The mask of manufactured anguish he wore was so flawless it made my stomach pitch.
“Eleanor! Oh God, my love, you’re home.” He rushed forward, his hands hovering as if afraid to touch a fragile antique. “I’ve been out of my mind with worry. I had too much scotch that night. The stress of the business… I snapped. Punishing you for my failures is a sin I’ll carry forever. Please, insult me, hit me, but don’t abandon me.”
I shrank back, tucking my chin, forcing my voice into a pathetic, wavering register. “I was going to file the divorce papers, Carter. But… five years. I couldn’t throw it all away. I just want peace.”
“Oh, thank the heavens!” Beatrice emerged from the kitchen, wiping imaginary tears with a silk handkerchief. She approached and grasped my hands, her thumbs stroking my knuckles in a grotesque pantomime of maternal affection. “We were so foolish, dear. Family fights belong behind closed doors. You look absolutely exhausted, you poor thing. Sit. I’m squeezing fresh orange juice for you right now to get your blood sugar up.”
The orange juice. The executioner’s chalice.
“Thank you, Beatrice,” I murmured, staring at the floor. “Carter, could you go up to the master suite and draw a bath for me? I feel sick.”
“Of course, anything,” he said, sprinting up the stairs like an eager golden retriever.
The moment Beatrice’s back was turned in the kitchen, I shed the persona. My spine snapped straight. I slipped silently into Carter’s ground-floor home office, the heavy door clicking shut behind me.
I had exactly three minutes.
I booted up his desktop. I didn’t need to guess his password; the idiot had used our wedding anniversary for half a decade. I withdrew a military-grade, encrypted USB drive from my pocket and jammed it into the port. My fingers flew across the keyboard, executing a stealth-clone command I’d utilized during hostile corporate takeovers.
The progress bar crawled. 20%… 45%… 80%…
My eyes scanned the directories flying across the screen. Phantom invoices. Shell companies registered in Delaware under his frat brothers’ names. Inflated costs for concrete and steel, the margins funneled directly into an offshore account. He hadn’t just cheated; he had orchestrated a calculated, two-million-dollar embezzlement scheme against the very company I bailed out.
The drive chimed softly. 100%.
I yanked the USB out, slipped it into my bra, and pressed a microscopic, button-shaped camera onto the spine of a leather-bound dictionary facing his desk. From now on, I would own his shadows.
I was sitting meekly on the living room sofa when Beatrice emerged, presenting a crystal glass filled with pulpy orange liquid.
“Here you go, sweet girl. Drink it all down.” Her eyes were wide, practically vibrating with anticipation.
I wrapped both hands around the cool glass. I raised it to my mouth, letting the citrus scent hit my nose. Then, I sharply lowered it, grimacing.
“Beatrice, did you put artificial sweetener in this? It smells chemical.” I stood up, placing the glass heavily on the glass table. “I’m on a strict cleanse. Sweeteners trigger my migraines. I’ll just leave it here. I need to lie down.”
Without waiting for her to protest, I grabbed my bag and ascended the stairs.
Behind me, I heard the distinct, furious sound of Beatrice grinding her teeth, followed by Carter’s heavy sigh from the landing above. Their little pharmaceutical ambush had failed.
I locked the master bedroom door, pulled out my laptop, and initiated a secure upload of the stolen hard drive data to Harrison’s encrypted server. Every phantom invoice, every wire transfer to the mistress, every shred of his fabricated empire was now in the hands of a shark.
I stared out the window at the manicured lawns of my estate. They wanted to steal my crown. Tomorrow, they would wake up to find I had already dismantled the entire kingdom.
