Chapter 3 - The Audit of the Five-Year LieThe silence in the grand living room was broken only by the crackle of the wood-burning fireplace and the distant sound of the wind whipping off Lake Michigan.
I didn't pull my hands away immediately, but my face remained a mask of cold, skeptical composure.
"A lie, Vincent?" I asked deadpan. "I saw you carrying her dirty dishes through a restaurant window. You were smiling at her. You looked at her with the tenderness you had denied me for six months."
Vincent pushed himself up from his knees, his broad chest heaving as he wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. He walked over to his wide mahogany desk near the corner, pulled out a secure keycard, and unlocked a concealed steel safe built into the wall.
He pulled out a thick leather binder bound by gold seals and laid it flat on the low coffee table between us.
"Her name was Sienna Vance," Vincent revealed, his voice dropping into a dark, frozen register. "She wasn't a random waitress from a downtown diner. She was the younger sister of Arthur Vance—the leader of the Detroit cartel who had been trying to infiltrate our Chicago shipping terminals for three years."
I frowned slightly, looking down at the legal documents inside the binder.
"Six months before our divorce," Vincent explained, his gray eyes burning with a dark, bitter rage, "Arthur Vance placed a chemical nerve toxin into my private liquor supply at the docks. It was a slow-acting, synthetic poison designed to cause cognitive degeneration and heart failure within a year."
I blinked in sudden, shock-filled realization. "The missed dinners... the coldness... the nights you barely looked at me..."
"My hands were trembling so badly I couldn't hold a pen, Claire," Vincent confessed softly, his voice thick with unreserved remorse. "My vision was blurring every afternoon. I went to three private specialists in secret, and they all told me the same thing: I had less than eight months to live."
I felt the ground shift beneath my feet. "You... you thought you were dying?"
"Sienna Vance was the one who approached me at the diner," Vincent continued. "She told me her brother held the antidote to the synthetic toxin. She said if I played the part of a devoted lover, allowed her to appear by my side in public, and transferred ten percent of our logistics stock to her family, she would provide the monthly doses to keep me alive."
I staggered back half a step, covering my mouth with my hand as tears of absolute, disbelieving shock spilled over my lashes.
"Why didn't you tell me, Vincent?!" I cried out, my voice cracking into a ragged sob. "We were married for twelve years! We built everything together! Why didn't you tell me you were being poisoned?!"
Vincent walked over to where I stood, taking my shoulders in his warm, firm grip, looking down into my hazel eyes with a look of pure, eternal love that lit up his severe features.
"Because Arthur Vance threatened to poison you next, Claire," Vincent revealed, his deep baritone shaking with profound emotion. "He knew you were my only weakness. He told me that if I ever revealed the deal to you, or if you tried to intervene, his men would execute you in our home."
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He pressed his forehead against mine, his warm breath fanning across my skin.
"I thought I was dying, Claire," Vincent whispered into the quiet room. "I thought I had six months left on this earth. I knew that if you stayed by my side, watching me rot in a hospital bed while the Detroit cartel destroyed our family, you would be hunted down the moment I died. So I lied to you. I told you I loved someone else... so you would take the settlement, take your freedom, and survive."
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