Chapter 3 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING
Julian stopped in the doorway. His eyes dropped from my face to the scattered diamonds glittering on the dark wood floor, then to my trembling hands.
"What are you doing in my office, Maya?"
His voice was a low, dangerous hum. It was the same tone he had used on the beach, right before he grabbed my wrist.
"I was looking for a pen," I said, forcing my heart rate to slow. "I dropped the bracelet. The clasp must have been loose."
Julian stepped into the room, the heavy oak door clicking shut behind him. He didn't look at the diamonds. He looked at the grandfather clock.
"You never come in here," he noted, closing the distance between us. He reached out, his fingers tracing the fading yellow bruise on my cheek. "You should be resting for tomorrow. The gala is very important to my mother."
"I know how important it is," I said, holding his gaze.
He studied me for a long, agonizing second. Then, he smiled. It was cold and practiced. "Good. Have the housekeeper sweep this up."
He turned and walked toward his desk. I slipped out of the room, my legs feeling like lead until I was safely behind my locked bedroom door.
I collapsed onto the edge of the bed, pulling the photograph from my pocket.
Leo. Six years old. Julian’s son.
The revelation twisted the knife in my chest, but it also changed the battleground. If Beatrice was controlling the funds keeping this boy alive, then taking down Julian and Beatrice would inevitably cut off the money Chloe needed.
I wasn't going to let an innocent child die to get my revenge. I needed to corner Chloe before the gala.
The next morning, the Pendelton Dynamics headquarters was a hive of chaotic energy. Caterers carried towers of champagne glasses into the grand ballroom. Florists arranged massive displays of white lilies—Beatrice's favorite.
I slipped through the service elevator and made my way to the executive floor.
Chloe was at her desk, typing furiously. She looked immaculate in a tailored navy suit, but up close, the dark circles under her eyes betrayed her exhaustion.
"Chloe," I said.
She jumped, slamming her laptop shut. When she saw me, her posture instantly became defensive. "Maya. Julian is in a meeting. You shouldn't be up here."
"I'm not here for Julian."
I walked around her desk and placed the photograph of her and Leo face-down on her keyboard.
She froze. Her manicured hand hovered over the paper. Slowly, she turned it over. All the color drained from her face.
"Where did you get this?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
"The grandfather clock," I replied softly.
Panic seized her features. She looked wildly toward the glass doors of Julian’s office. "Maya, please. You don't understand. Julian doesn't care about him. Beatrice threatened to cut off the clinical trial in Zurich if I didn't play along. She made me type the altered safety reports. I had to do it. Leo has acute myeloid leukemia."
"I know," I said.
She slumped into her chair, a single tear cutting through her perfect makeup. "Are you going to expose me tonight?"
"I'm going to expose them," I corrected. "But to do that, I need to know exactly how the Anniversary Transfer is being routed. The flash drive is encrypted at the final destination."
Chloe shook her head frantically. "If I help you, Beatrice pulls the plug. She controls the Apex Horizon shell company."
"She controls stolen money," I said, leaning closer. "I am a forensic attorney, Chloe. I have already contacted the chairman. If you testify that Beatrice and Julian coerced you, I can secure you immunity. More importantly, Mr. Pendelton has a private philanthropic foundation. If you help me prove the embezzlement, the foundation will cover Leo's treatments in full. Legally. Safely."
Chloe stared at me. She was looking for the trap. She couldn't comprehend why the wife she had helped bury in the sand would offer her a lifeline.
"Why would you help my son?" she asked, her voice breaking.
"Because Julian left me to bleed, and you watched," I said, my voice hardening. "But Leo didn't. I don't punish children for the sins of their parents."
Chloe closed her eyes, a ragged sob escaping her throat. She reached into her desk drawer. She didn't pull out a USB drive or a file folder.
She pulled out a crumpled piece of construction paper.
It was a child's drawing in bright, waxy crayons. A stick figure of a woman holding hands with a little boy. Written in messy, backward letters at the top was MOMMY AND LEO.
"Turn it over," Chloe whispered.
I flipped the drawing. On the back, written in sharp black ink, was a sequence of numbers and letters.
"That's the routing code for the Apex Horizon account," Chloe said, wiping her eyes. "Beatrice changes it every week. She wrote it on the back of Leo's drawing to mock me. To remind me who she holds hostage."
I stared at Beatrice's elegant handwriting defacing the child's art. The rage that had been simmering inside me crystallized into absolute ice.
"Thank you, Chloe."
"Maya," she called out as I turned to leave. "Be careful tonight. Julian isn't just embezzling money. The safety reports I altered... they were for the structural supports used in the new harbor bridge project. He bought cheap, defective steel to skim the difference."
I stopped dead in my tracks.
It wasn't just corporate theft. If that bridge collapsed, hundreds of people would die.
Before I could process the magnitude of the discovery, the elevator doors at the end of the hall dinged open.
May you like
Beatrice stepped out, draped in a mink coat despite the mild weather, her eyes locking onto me with the precision of a sniper.
"Maya, darling," Beatrice purred, her heels clicking sharply against the marble floor. "Whatever are you doing bothering poor Chloe? And what is that piece of trash in your hand?"
