Chapter 2 - The Mask Slips"Read it," I whispered, sliding my phone across the table toward her.
Tessa hesitated, her fingers trembling as she picked up the device. Her eyes scanned the first few lines of Exhibit F, tracking the columns of numbers, the shell company names, and the highlighted wire transfers bearing her signature alongside mine.
The color drained entirely from her face. The sophisticated, untouchable aura she usually carried melted away, replaced instantly by a cornered, frantic survivalist.
"This... this is garbage," Tessa stammered, dropping the phone back onto the table as if it were burning hot. "Your ex-wife is vindictive. She’s trying to ruin us because she couldn't accept that you didn't love her anymore! You told me her family money was just a small loan! You told me you closed those deals!"
"I lied, Tessa," I said, my voice dead, hollow, devoid of any emotion. "I lied to you, I lied to myself, and I built an entire castle out of sand while she stood quietly holding the walls together."
"Don't you dare put this on me!" Tessa snapped, her voice rising high enough to draw the attention of the maitre d' standing near the entrance. "We planned this together! You were the one who wanted the penthouse! You were the one who wanted to expand the firm! If your ex-wife is going scorched earth, you need to call your lawyers right now and sue her for defamation!"
My phone buzzed again. This time it wasn't a family member or a colleague.
It was Arthur Sterling, the eighty-year-old chairman of our board of directors and primary venture capital backer.
Arthur: "Daniel. Get your ass down to the office immediately. The board has emergency-frozen all corporate accounts pending an FBI financial crimes inquiry. Do not come near the building."
I stared at the screen, reading the words twice to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. My career, my reputation, my wealth, my social standing—everything I had defined myself by for over a decade—had just evaporated.
Tessa watched my expression change, and the last shred of her romantic illusion vanished.
"Your accounts are frozen, aren't they?" she asked quietly, her tone shifting from panic to a cold, razor-sharp calculation.
"Yes."
She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her designer blazer. A bitter, ugly laugh escaped her lips. "Unbelievable. I wasted eighteen months playing second fiddle to a miserable, burned-out marriage, thinking I was hitching my wagon to a titan of industry. And it turns out you were just a fraud riding on your wife’s coattails."
"Tessa..."
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"Don't 'Tessa' me," she hissed, grabbing her Chanel handbag from the back of the chair. "We are done. Do not call me, do not text me, and lose my number before I block you myself."
Without another word, she stood up, turned on her heels, and stormed out of the restaurant, leaving me sitting alone at the table with a half-eaten slice of chocolate cake and a ringing phone that would never stop haunting me.
