“Phoebe, I need you to dig into everything on Richard Vance, Selina Cole, and her family’s holding companies.”
Her tone shifted instantly when I recounted the hospital recording. “Give me seventy-two hours, Mabel.”
Flynn conducted his own frantic investigation. He returned to my hospital room three days later, looking utterly destroyed.
“Selina lied,” he choked out, leaning against the foot of my bed. “Her neighborhood security cameras prove she was nowhere near our house before she showed up. She gave herself that scratch. Richard confessed under pressure that he took two hundred thousand dollars to cover up your pregnancy and induce surgical distress.”
“Have you turned her over to the police?” I asked quietly.
Flynn lowered his eyes.
That silence was all the answer I needed. Even after learning she had orchestrated the murder of his unborn children and targeted my life, a sick, pathetic part of him still wanted to protect her.
“Get out.”
“Mabel—”
“Get out before I have security remove you.”
One week later was the seventy-fifth birthday gala for Arthur Vance, Flynn’s grandfather and the patriarch of Vance Global. The entire corporate and social elite of Chicago was in attendance.
I arrived on Flynn’s arm because his family desperately wanted to maintain the illusion of high-society stability before the press.
Selina appeared wearing an exquisite white gown, flanked by her wealthy parents. She walked right up to me. “Mabel! I am so glad to see you looking better!”
I smiled smoothly. “Enjoy the party, Selina.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“This might be the last gala you attend as a guest rather than a suspect in handcuffs.”
The color drained from her face.
At the end of dinner, the lights dimmed for a tribute video honoring Arthur Vance’s legacy. But seconds into the presentation, the screen flickered and switched inputs.
My emergency room ultrasound appeared on the massive displays overhead.
Then came high-resolution surveillance photos of Richard Vance accepting a briefcase of cash from Selina behind a medical clinic.
Then came Richard’s recorded confession: “Ms. Cole paid me one million dollars. She wanted Mabel Vance to die on the operating table.”
Gasping and outraged whispers erupted across the ballroom.
Selina screamed, “That’s fake! It’s a setup!”
I took the microphone from the podium. “I am the woman who was meant to die on that table.”
Flynn closed his eyes in pure agony.
“And he,” I continued, pointing directly at my husband, “was the man who drove a knife into my stomach because he preferred to trust his mistress over his wife.”
Uniformed police officers stepped through the ballroom doors. Selina was placed in handcuffs on the spot. Her mother fainted; her father began shouting for his attorneys.
As she was being escorted out, Selina whipped her head toward me, her eyes burning with raw hatred. “You think you’re so smart, Mabel?! I didn’t plan this alone!”
That sentence hung in the air long after she was dragged away.
Later that night, Phoebe called my private line. “Mabel, I found something much deeper.”
“What is it?”
“Selina’s family firm is tied to a network of offshore shell companies that were created long before you married Flynn,” Phoebe revealed. “And those exact shell entities are linked to assets that originally belonged to your late father.”
My mind reeled. My father, Robert Sterling, had died eighteen years ago in a sudden, suspicious car crash. His logistics firm had been dismantled shortly after, and the Vance family had stepped in as our wealthy “patrons.”
Suddenly, eighteen years of history began to shift into focus.
That very evening, Flynn’s mother, Fiona Vance, requested a private meeting with me. She set a cup of tea in front of me across the table.
“Mabel, what Selina did is only the surface of this mess,” Fiona said coldly.
“Then tell me what’s underneath.”
Fiona observed me for a long moment. “Your father didn’t die in an accident, Mabel. He was murdered.”
My hands went completely numb.
“And before he died,” Fiona added, “he locked a multi-million-dollar offshore trust under your maiden name that no one has been able to access for eighteen years.”
A fortune that people had been willing to kill for.
Including me.
PART 3
“Explain yourself, Fiona,” I commanded, my voice dropping into a deadly register.
Fiona took a slow breath. “Your father, Arthur Vance, and a private investor named Hector Cole founded a logistics network in the nineties. Your father discovered Hector was using the freight lines to launder illegal capital and threatened to go to federal authorities.”
“So Hector had him killed?”
“That is what we suspect.”
I slammed my palm flat against the mahogany table. “My father has been dead for eighteen years, and your family is still hiding behind suspicions?!”
Fiona remained unnervingly calm. “Before he died, your father transferred his patents, international accounts, and corporate shares into a locked private governance trust. You are the sole primary beneficiary.”
The terrifying truth clicked into place. “That’s why your family took my mother and me in after his death.”
“Your mother was struggling—”
“Do not insult my intelligence!” I leaned across the table. “Did your family ‘protect’ me because you cared, or because I held the key to unlocking that trust?!”
For the first time, Fiona averted her eyes.
I stood up. “Thank you for confirming it.”
“Mabel, wait,” Fiona urged. “Flynn suspected you were in danger!”
I froze. “What did you just say?”
“He committed an unforgivable act, but Flynn believed Selina was being manipulated by Hector Cole. He was trying to figure out who was pulling the strings!”
I let out a bitter, hollow laugh. “And that’s why he stabbed me twice in our living room?!”
“He lost control—”
“Do not try to rewrite history, Fiona!” I snapped. “There was no heroic plan. There was no secret sacrifice. My husband didn’t stab me to save me—he stabbed me because he chose to believe his mistress over his wife!”
I pulled out my smartphone and tapped the screen.
“I have something you didn’t expect me to find,” I said, turning the screen toward her.
It was a video file recorded weeks prior in Flynn’s private study. On his desk lay my emergency room ultrasound printout, meticulously pieced back together with clear tape. I had ripped up the envelope after overhearing him with Selina, but someone had retrieved the pieces from the trash.
Flynn.
“He knew I was pregnant before he stabbed me,” I whispered.
Fiona went completely pale. “Mabel…”
“Maybe he didn’t know it was twins. Maybe he thought the ultrasound was old. Invent whatever pathetic excuse you want, Fiona. But he looked at that image, and he still raised a knife against me.”
I grabbed my purse. “I am divorcing your son. And if my father’s trust exists, I am reclaiming every single dollar.”
Two days later, I met with Dr. Marcus Reed outside the hospital. I had discovered that he wasn’t merely a dedicated trauma physician—he was the youngest son of Arthur Reed, founder of Reed Global, one of the most powerful financial conglomerates in the Midwest.
“Phoebe told me who you really are, Marcus,” I said as we walked through a private courtyard.
Marcus offered a faint smile. “I figured you’d trace it eventually.”
“Why did you intervene to save my life in trauma?”
His expression hardened. “Because Hector Cole destroyed my family, too.”
Years ago, Marcus’s sister had suffered a fatal accident during a hostile corporate takeover orchestrated by Cole’s shell entities. The investigation had gone cold, but Marcus had been tracking Cole’s money trail ever since.
“You are the only person holding the legal proxy capable of forcing Hector Cole into the light,” Marcus said directly.
“So you want to use me as bait?”