Chapter 2 - My Name Was Attached to a Debt I Never Took
I stared at my forged signature until it stopped looking like my name.
The curve of the K was almost perfect.
The final stroke in Hale was wrong.
Thain always made that mistake when he tried to copy my handwriting on birthday cards.
I suddenly remembered laughing about it years earlier.
Nothing about the memory was funny now.
“How much has been borrowed?” I asked.
Daniel checked the statement.
“Six hundred twenty thousand.”
My mouth went dry.
Sloan was already reaching for her phone.
“We’re notifying the lender that the authorization is disputed. Today.”
“What happens to Thain?”
“That depends on what he knew.”
“He knew.”
“I believe you. Now we prove it.”
At 9:17, Thain began calling.
I declined the first call.
Then the second.
By the fifth, Sloan held out her hand.
“Let him leave a message.”
He did.
Kala, please call me before your lawyer does something that damages the company. Whatever you think is happening, it isn’t what it looks like.
I almost laughed.
The same sentence.
Different disaster.
Sloan listened twice.
“He’s more worried about the company than the divorce.”
“He always said the company was our future.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Technically, that may help you.”
He explained that because the startup had been built during our marriage, Thain’s ownership interest could become a major marital asset.
That was why he had been terrified by the inventory behind my divorce papers.
Not because I wanted his company.
Because I had the legal right to ask what it was worth.
Then Daniel found another document.
Six weeks earlier, Thain had requested an updated valuation.
The number stunned me.
$38 million.
Yet the financial statements he submitted to our household accountant valued his stake at less than $4 million.
“Which number is real?” I asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“That’s what we need to determine.”
My phone vibrated again.
This time it wasn’t Thain.
It was an unknown number.
The message contained only seven words:
Kala, please don’t block me. It’s Lyra.
I stared at the screen.
Another message arrived.
Thain lied to me too.
May you like
Then a third:
And I know what Ravelin really is.
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