Chapter 2
Eve had not meant to say it yet.
But his reaction told her enough.
There it was.
The first mini-payoff.
The flinch.
The crack in his mask.
Grant stepped closer.
“What money?”
“The thirty-eight million from the Whitaker Ventures emergency reserve,” Eve said. “Moved through three shells. One in Nevada. One in Delaware. One in the Caymans.”
Sloane’s eyes snapped to Grant.
Eve saw it.
Not surprise.
Fear.
So Sloane knew about the affair.
She knew about the divorce.
She knew about the plan to push Eve out before the baby was born.
But she did not know everything.
Good.
Eve filed that away.
Grant lifted the club slightly.
“You’ve been snooping.”
“No,” Eve said. “I’ve been married to you.”
His mouth twisted.
“That’s over.”
He swung again.
Not at her stomach.
At the phone.
He did not know exactly where it was, but he saw her hand move and brought the club down across the edge of the table.
Glass exploded.
Eve turned her shoulder away, protecting her belly as tiny fragments sprayed across the white rug.
One shard kissed her cheek.
Warmth slid down toward her jaw.
She did not touch it.
Sloane gasped, but not out of concern.
The champagne flute in her hand had shattered.
A line of red opened across one of her fingers.
“You idiot,” Sloane hissed at Grant. “You said you’d scare her.”
Grant rounded on her.
“Shut up.”
That was the second mini-payoff.
The mistress was not in control.
Not fully.
Eve’s phone lay under the fallen napkin, screen cracked but still alive.
Still recording.
The baby moved.
A slow, strong roll beneath her palm.
Eve lowered her chin.
“I need to sit down,” she said.
“No,” Grant snapped.
“She’s pregnant,” Sloane said, but there was annoyance in it, not mercy. “Grant, if something happens to the baby—”
Grant pointed the club at Eve’s face.
“Nothing is going to happen if she signs.”
He kicked a folder across the rug.
It slid through the broken glass and stopped against Eve’s bare foot.
The folder was black leather, embossed with the logo of Grant’s attorney.
Eve had read the first version two days earlier.
This one was thicker.
That meant he had added something.
She crouched slowly.
Not because he told her to.
Because she wanted the camera in the corner to see her moving carefully.
Because the footage mattered.
Because every second she stayed alive, every detail became evidence.
Inside the folder were divorce documents, a nondisclosure agreement, and a medical custody waiver.
Eve’s stomach tightened.
Not from pain.
From rage.
The waiver gave Grant temporary authority over medical decisions for their unborn child if Eve became “emotionally unstable, incapacitated, or medically compromised.”
There it was.
The third mini-payoff.
This was not just about divorce.
This was about the baby.
Eve looked up.
Grant had the arrogance to hold her gaze.
“You’re not taking him,” she said.
“Our son needs stability,” Grant said. “Not a mother who spies on her husband and invents financial crimes.”
Sloane’s bracelet flashed in the light.
Eve’s bracelet.
Her grandmother’s bracelet.
A gift from her father on the morning of her wedding.
Sloane caught Eve staring and lifted her wrist.
“Oh,” Sloane said. “Grant said you wouldn’t care. Since you have so many little family trophies.”
Eve’s smile came then.
Small.
Brief.
Sharp enough to make Sloane’s eyes narrow.
“That bracelet has a tracker in the clasp,” Eve said.
Sloane froze.
Grant turned slowly toward her wrist.
Eve let the silence sit.
It wasn’t true.
Not exactly.
There had been a tracker once, installed by her father’s security team during a series of executive kidnapping threats in Boston. It had been removed before the wedding.
But neither Grant nor Sloane knew that.
Grant’s face changed.
For one second, he was not the husband with a golf club.
He was the CFO who had just realized a wire transfer had been flagged.
“What did you do?” he said.
Eve did not answer.
She lowered her eyes to the papers.
“Page six,” she said. “You forgot to update the date.”
Grant blinked.
“What?”
“The separation agreement says I abandoned the marital home on May 14.” Eve turned the page with a glass-cut fingertip. “Today is May 13.”
Sloane’s mouth parted.
May you like
Grant’s shoulders stiffened.
The fourth mini-payoff.
