Chapter 13 - THE WOMAN I HATED BECAME THE WITNESS WE NEEDED
Daniel did not kidnap Sophie.
He tried to pay her.
The difference mattered legally.
Morally, barely.
Police found them in a private office Daniel rented under another company name.
Sophie was furious.
Not afraid.
She had recorded everything.
Daniel offered her three million dollars to retract statements tying him to the shadow accounts.
She refused.
Then stalled him until investigators arrived.
When I saw her afterward, she had mascara under both eyes and looked like she wanted to break something.
“You okay?”
She stared at me.
“That’s a strange question.”
“Still.”
“Yes.”
I nodded.
That was enough.
We would never be friends.
We didn’t need to be.
Sophie handed investigators the recording.
Daniel confessed more than he realized.
He admitted using my credentials.
Forging internal approvals.
Moving money.
Pressuring Grant.
He also admitted something that changed the Northlake case.
Michael’s father had manipulated evidence against Robert Larkin.
Daniel knew.
Grant did not.
Grant had signed the report that helped convict Robert because Daniel gave him falsified audit material.
Sophie stared at Grant when she learned.
For years, she blamed him.
Grant had been used too.
Not innocent.
Just guilty of different things.
That distinction mattered.
Michael’s father was dead.
Daniel would face charges.
Northlake’s pension money could be restored.
Robert Larkin’s conviction was referred for posthumous review.
Sophie cried when she heard.
Quietly.
She had spent eight years trying to clear her father.
The affair.
The lies.
The manipulation.
None of it became acceptable.
But I finally understood what grief had made her willing to become.
That evening, I returned to the condo for the first time since the Slack post.
Grant had moved out.
The kitchen still smelled faintly like ginger.
The short ribs were gone.
The pot sat clean in the drying rack.
I stood in the living room where he kissed Sophie.
I expected devastation.
Instead, I felt tired.
And strangely free.
My old studio remained disturbed from Sophie’s search.
I opened the cabinet.
Pulled out my drawing tablet.
Charged it.
The screen lit up.
My old portfolio appeared.
Packaging.
Identity systems.
Illustrations.
Versions of myself I thought had disappeared.
My phone buzzed.
Elliot.
Board approved restructuring. They want you as interim chair. No pressure to accept.
I stared.
Chair?
I knew branding.
People.
Clients.
I did not know how to run a financial advisory firm.
Then another message.
You would not be CEO. Your job would be governance. Hire people smarter than all of us.
I laughed.
He knew exactly what I was thinking.
I replied:
That last part sounds easy.
Three dots.
Dinner? Professionally. Mostly.
My heart did something inconvenient.
I typed:
Not yet.
He answered immediately.
Understood.
No pressure.
No sulking.
Just understood.
Then I opened an old design file I had not touched in five years.
The project name:
Bennett Studio Relaunch.
I had created it two weeks before Grant convinced me to stop taking clients.
Inside was a note to myself.
Don’t disappear just because being needed feels like love.
May you like
I stared at the sentence.
Then I started drawing again.
