Chapter 12 - MY HUSBAND HAD BEEN PLANNING TO RUN
There are betrayals that make you cry.
Others make everything suddenly clear.
Matthias had moved seventeen million dollars into protected accounts.
He claimed he discovered his father’s fraud months ago.
He knew Dre Capital might collapse.
So he started removing money.
“Whose money?” I asked.
“Mine.”
Nathan answered instead.
“No.”
He had already reviewed the preliminary transfer records.
Some money came from Matthias’s compensation.
Most did not.
Investor funds had been mixed into the accounts.
Matthias looked sick.
“I planned to put it back.”
I almost smiled.
His father had said almost exactly the same thing.
Generational morality.
Take first.
Explain later.
Another contraction hit.
There was no time left for interrogation.
At 9:18 p.m., my daughter’s heart rate began dropping again.
The obstetrician made the decision.
Emergency C-section.
Everything moved fast.
Consent forms.
Bright lights.
Masks.
Matthias stood outside the operating room.
“Serena.”
I looked back.
“If something happens—”
“Don’t.”
“I need to say it.”
“No. You need to live long enough to deal with what you did.”
For the first time all night, he almost smiled.
Then the doors closed.
At 9:47 p.m., I heard a sound so small I nearly missed it.
A cry.
My daughter.
Three pounds, fourteen ounces.
Alive.
The neonatologist lifted her just long enough for me to see a tiny furious face.
I started sobbing.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Then she was taken to the NICU.
Stable.
Breathing with assistance.
Beautiful.
When I woke in recovery, Nathan was beside me.
“Baby?”
“Doing well.”
“Matthias?”
“With police.”
I closed my eyes.
“Good.”
The trust had changed the instant my daughter was born alive.
The forty-two million dollars now belonged irrevocably to a trust for her benefit.
Neither Matthias.
Nor Conrad.
Nor Claire.
Not even me could simply take it.
Nathan had also filed emergency protective orders.
Dre Capital could not touch a cent.
The financial motive for controlling my pregnancy was gone.
Then Nathan told me something else.
Before his police interview, Matthias voluntarily surrendered access to every hidden account.
All seventeen million.
He also signed a statement admitting what he had done.
“He asked me to give you this.”
Nathan placed an envelope beside me.
I did not open it.
Not yet.
Instead I went to the NICU.
My daughter lay beneath warm lights wearing a tiny knit cap.
I placed one finger inside the incubator.
Her hand closed around it.
Everything else disappeared.
Then the NICU nurse approached.
“Mrs. Dre?”
“Yes?”
“We found something attached beneath the baby’s transport paperwork.”
A small envelope.
My name.
Inside was a handwritten note.
Not Claire’s.
Not Matthias’s.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
Evelyn.
SERENA, IF CLAIRE IS ARRESTED, DO NOT ASSUME THE DANGER IS OVER.
I turned the page.
One sentence followed.
May you like
CONRAD KNEW ABOUT CLAIRE BEFORE TONIGHT.
HE LET HER PROCEED.
