Chapter 2 - The Cold Drive North
The rain began the moment I pulled out of the driveway, heavy drops smacking against the windshield of my SUV like gravel. I didn’t look back at the estate. I didn’t need to. The image of Daniel holding Marisol while my mother-in-law, Carmen, stood over my daughter’s high chair was burned into my retinas.
They thought I was fleeing. They thought I was the broken woman wandering into the dark, wept-out and weaponless.
They had forgotten who hired the security firm that installed the cameras. They had forgotten whose name was stamped on the original deed of the Northridge land before Daniel’s father attempted to restructure the family trust. Most importantly, they had forgotten that before I was Daniel Vance’s dutiful wife, I was the chief financial auditor for Vance Global Logistics.
I drove straight to the industrial district on the edge of the city. The windshield wipers beat a steady rhythm—tick, tick, tick—like a countdown. My phone vibrated endlessly on the passenger seat. Daniel. Carmen. Marisol. Even a few text messages from cousins who had been at the party, probing for gossip, trying to figure out if the police were going to be involved.
I didn’t answer any of them. Instead, I dialed a number I hadn’t called in three years.
"Elena," a deep voice answered on the second ring. Vance Sterling didn't do pleasantries. He was Daniel’s estranged uncle, the man who had been cast out of the family firm eight years ago when Carmen engineered a corporate buyout that stripped him of his shares. "I heard about the party. News travels fast in our circles."
"How fast?" I asked, keeping my voice smooth, steady, devoid of the panic they expected from me.
"Fast enough to know Marisol lost her mind over a cake, and Daniel chose his mother's delusion over his wife," Vance said, the sound of a glass clinking against ice echoing over the line. "Where are you?"
"Heading to your office in the East Port."
A pause on the line. "You brought the ledgers?"
"I brought everything, Vance. The 2019 offshore transfers, the double-billed shipping manifests from the Singapore expansion, and the signed affidavit from the notary Carmen bribed to falsify your father's power of attorney."
Silence stretched for three seconds. Then Vance exhaled slowly. "The door is unlocked. Drive into the underground bay."
When I pulled in, Vance was waiting by the elevator, dressed in a sharp charcoal suit with silver hair combed neatly back. He didn't look like a disgraced exile; he looked like an executioner waiting for his mark.
"You look remarkably calm for a woman who was just ousted from her home," Vance observed as he opened my passenger door.
"I wasn't ousted," I said, stepping out and grabbing my leather briefcase from the back seat. "I was released from an obligation. Daniel thinks he left me with nothing tonight. He thinks because the family name is Vance, the city belongs to him."
"And Isla?" Vance asked, his eyes softening slightly. He had always hated how Carmen treated children like assets on a balance sheet.
"Isla is safe for tonight. Carmen wants to play grandmother of the year, but she won't dare harm a hair on her head with fifteen high-profile guests knowing I left under duress," I said, opening the briefcase to reveal three black encrypted thumb drives and a thick folder of yellowing documents. "Besides, I called the police from the car ten minutes ago."
Vance raised an eyebrow. "For what?"
"A welfare check and a formal domestic report detailing brandished weapons in the presence of an infant," I replied coldly. "The officers are arriving at the house right about now. Daniel will have to explain why his sister is holding a chef's knife while forty-seven separate financial fraud claims are being delivered to the district attorney's desk."
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Vance smiled—a slow, dangerous expression. "You really don't play around, do you, Elena?"
"They took my daughter's first birthday and turned it into a circus," I said, walking toward the elevator. "Now I am going to take their circus and burn it to the ground."
