My husband forgot to end the video call, and 30 employees watched his assistant sitting on his lap, wearing the $110,000 necklace he had refused to buy me. When he told me, “It’s not what it looks like,” I simply left dinner on the table and walked away. That night, I opened a folder belonging to my father… and discovered something my husband had never imagined.

Flynn arrived at Vance Global Tower at two in the afternoon.

He looked like a ghost of the man who had strutted through these halls five days ago. His suit was wrinkled, his hair unwashed, his face hollow and pale. He was accompanied by a greasy, expensive-looking defense attorney named Arthur Vance-Smith, who looked equally stressed.

They were escorted into the main board room by two uniformed security guards.

Flynn’s eyes scanned the room, landing on me as I sat at the head of the long mahogany table, flanked by Harrison Cole and two forensic auditors.

"Mabel," Flynn stammered, his voice hoarse. "Please... you have to stop this. The press is sitting outside my house. The bank froze my personal credit cards this morning! I couldn't even buy gas to drive down here!"

"Sit down, Flynn," I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion.

His attorney pulled out a chair for him, leaning down to whisper frantically in Flynn’s ear before addressing the room.

"Mrs. Vance, Mr. Cole," the attorney began, putting on a brave face. "My client acknowledges that there were... severe marital indiscretions and procedural irregularities in his management of Vance Global. However, my client is a co-founder of this institution. He holds rights to severance, intellectual property back-pay, and—"

Harrison Cole didn't let him finish. He simply tossed a two-hundred-page red binder across the table.

BANG.

The sound echoed through the silent boardroom.

"That is a complete forensic trace of Vance Horizon, Apex Prime, and Lumina Global," Harrison stated calmly. "It includes seventeen signed wire authorizations carrying your client's forged signature, four shell bank registrations in the Seychelles, and the property deed for a three-million-dollar villa in St. Barts bought with embezzled client funds."

Flynn’s attorney stopped talking mid-sentence. He slowly picked up the red binder, opened the first page, and spent three minutes reading in absolute, dead silence.

With every second that passed, the attorney’s face turned grayer and grayer.

Finally, the attorney closed the binder, turned to Flynn, and whispered three words: "You are screwed."

"What?!" Flynn gasped, clutching his attorney’s arm. "What do you mean?! Fix it! That's why I'm paying you ten thousand dollars a month!"

"You're not paying me anything, Flynn, because your accounts are frozen," the attorney spat, leaning back from him in disgust. "This is wire fraud, bank fraud, and grand larceny involving federal banking lines. If this hits the United States Attorney’s desk, you are looking at fifteen to twenty-five years in federal penitentiary."

Flynn turned his wild, terrified eyes toward me. He slid off his chair, sinking onto his knees on the carpet of the boardroom floor, weeping loudly, extending his hands toward me across the polished mahogany surface.

"Mabel! Mabel, please! I was stupid! Selina tricked me! Her brother tricked me! They pushed me into setting up those accounts! I did it for us! I did it for our future!"

"You bought a villa in St. Barts for your mistress for our future?" I asked, looking down at him with cold disgust. "You bought $110,000 diamond necklaces while refusing to give your daughter twenty dollars for a school book fair... for our future?"

"I'll give it all back!" Flynn sobbed, tears splashing onto his trousers. "I'll sign whatever you want! Just don't let them send me to prison! Think of Clara! What will people say if her father goes to prison?!"

"You should have thought of Clara before you committed federal crimes," I replied coldly.

Harrison Cole slid the blue leather folder across the table.

"This is a total asset surrender agreement," Harrison explained. "You will surrender your equity in Vance Global. You will surrender the Wellesley house, your luxury vehicles, your private investment holdings, and your personal bank accounts. Every single asset will be transferred into an irrevocable educational and living trust for your daughter, Clara Mercer-Vance."

Flynn stared at the document, his breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps. "And... and what about me? What do I get?"

"You get to walk out of this building without handcuffs today," Harrison said flatly. "And you get thirty days to find an apartment before the federal grand jury indicts you on the client fund diversions—because while Mabel has agreed not to press private civil charges, the Department of Justice has already received an anonymous tip regarding your offshore accounts."

Flynn’s face went dead white. "An anonymous tip... from who?!"