Chương 10
“What happens now?”
“I divorce you.”
He closed his eyes.
She watched.
The pain on his face was real.
That made nothing easier.
“I figured.”
“You cooperate with the estate investigation.”
“My lawyers—”
“I don’t care what they advise. You asked what happens. That’s what I want.”
He looked at her.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you don’t.”
“That’s it?”
“You keep waiting for me to threaten you.”
“You did on the yacht.”
“I was terrified.”
“You didn’t look terrified.”
“I was.”
He studied her.
“I thought you were going to destroy me.”
Victoria looked at the room around them.
“I don’t have that much energy.”
That was true.
Revenge required a focus she did not possess.
She wanted her mother’s property accounted for.
She wanted Mercer stabilized.
She wanted to stop waking at four in the morning wondering which parts of her marriage had actually happened.
Destroying Ethan was not the same as accomplishing any of those things.
He moved toward the door.
At the threshold, he stopped.
“Was any of it real to you?”
Victoria almost answered quickly.
Then she didn’t.
She looked at him.
“Our marriage?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
His eyes lowered.
“That’s worse.”
“I know.”
He left.
The criminal case developed slowly.
Ethan’s cooperation was partial at first.
His attorneys negotiated over devices, financial records, and statements. The contractor who had accessed the mausoleum eventually produced work orders showing that Ethan personally instructed him to release removed jewelry to Ethan’s custody.
The contractor had not known Ethan lacked authority to keep it.
That fact spared one person and tightened the case around another.
Sienna’s role remained complicated.
Alder Maritime had performed legitimate consulting work mixed with transactions designed to obscure fees and ownership.
Her attorney provided records voluntarily after negotiating protections concerning certain statements. She was not transformed into an innocent witness.
She had signed documents.
She had accepted money.
She had ignored questions because the answers might have inconvenienced her.
Victoria found that oddly reassuring.
People did not need to become good in order to become useful.
Three months after the yacht, prosecutors charged Ethan with several financial offenses connected to the estate collateral and fraudulent representations to lenders. The mausoleum incident produced separate charges related to unauthorized conversion of estate property rather than the sensational grave-robbing accusation social media had already invented.
The law was less poetic than anger.
Victoria appreciated that.
She had made the mistake on the yacht of calling the brooch “evidence from a sealed estate.” The phrase appeared online after one guest leaked part of what happened.
Lawyers corrected the details.
The estate itself had been subject to preservation restrictions. The mausoleum access had been authorized for maintenance, but Ethan’s personal retention of property had not.
The difference mattered.
Victoria learned to let accuracy replace drama.
It made the story less satisfying to strangers and more survivable to her.
Mercer Holdings nearly lost the Newport project anyway.
The company’s lenders did not care that its financial trouble had emerged alongside marital betrayal. They cared about covenants.
Victoria spent six weeks negotiating.
She was bad at the first meeting.
She interrupted a banker twice.
Misread a schedule.
Promised to send figures she did not have.
Afterward, she sat in a restroom stall and cried from embarrassment.
Then she returned to the office and asked the chief financial officer to explain the model again without abbreviations.
By the next meeting, she was better.
Not brilliant.
Better.
The company sold a warehouse property rather than leverage additional estate assets. The sale price disappointed the board but stabilized short-term cash.
Victoria approved a reduction in the Newport development scope.
It cost them a rooftop restaurant her mother had wanted.
That decision bothered her for days.
Then she realized Eleanor had been dead fourteen months and still seemed capable of arguing with her through floor plans.
Victoria approved the cut anyway.
One evening in April, Sienna came to the Mercer office.
She had requested the meeting through attorneys.
Victoria almost refused.
Then she agreed to fifteen minutes.
Sienna arrived wearing a charcoal suit instead of satin. Her hair was still in the same sleek low bun Victoria associated with the yacht, and for one irrational second Victoria resented the consistency.
They sat across from each other.
No attorneys remained in the room, though both were nearby.
Sienna placed a small envelope on the table.
Victoria did not touch it.
“What is that?”
“A check.”
“For what?”
“The money I made from Alder.”
Victoria stared.
“All of it?”
“What’s left.”
“How much?”
“One hundred ninety-one thousand.”
“What happened to the rest?”
“Taxes. Rent. A handbag I regret.”
Victoria looked at her.
Sienna shrugged.
“I’m trying not to make this theatrical.”
“You’re failing a little.”
“I know.”
Victoria pushed the envelope back.
“I don’t want your money.”
“It belongs to the estate.”
“Then send it to the estate through counsel.”
“I did. They said accepting it directly could create issues until the investigation is resolved.”
“Then why bring it to me?”
“Because I wanted you to know I’m returning it.”
Victoria studied her.
“That’s about you.”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised her.
Sienna folded her hands.
“I wanted to do one thing that made me feel less disgusting.”
“There are charities.”
Sienna gave a small smile.
“I deserve that.”
Victoria looked out through the glass wall.
Employees moved beyond it, carrying laptops, coffee, folders. Nobody stared openly anymore.
“Why did you stay with him after you knew he was lying about us?”
Sienna looked down at the table.
“Because leaving would have meant admitting I had built six months of my life around a lie I volunteered to believe.”
Victoria looked back at her.
“That’s familiar.”
Sienna raised her eyes.
Neither smiled.
After a moment, Victoria said, “I kept giving him authority because admitting I couldn’t handle things felt worse than not knowing what he was doing.”
Sienna leaned back.
“That’s different.”
“Not as different as I’d like.”
“You were grieving.”
May you like
“I was also avoiding.”
Sienna looked at her for a long moment.
