Chapter 3 - The Mistress’s Second Secret
Camila Brooks expected Victoria to arrive furious. Instead, Victoria entered the private lounge at the Beaumont Hotel with an attorney waiting discreetly in the lobby and two investigators monitoring the conversation from a nearby room.
Camila sat in a corner booth wearing dark glasses. Without Julian beside her, she looked younger and less certain.
“You brought people,” Camila said.
“I brought precautions.”
“I said to come alone.”
“And I decided not to trust the woman who photographed herself in bed with my husband.”
Camila removed her glasses. “Fair.”
Victoria sat across from her. “Show me the evidence.”
“I want immunity.”
“You aren’t negotiating with the government.”
“I could go to the government.”
“Then you would need to explain your role in the scheme.”
Camila’s hands tightened around a glass of water. “I didn’t know what he was doing at first.”
“But eventually you did.”
“Eventually I knew enough to become afraid.”
She removed a small flash drive from her purse but kept it beneath her palm.
Camila had met Julian fourteen months earlier at an industry conference in Las Vegas. He told her his marriage existed only for appearances and that Victoria had abandoned him emotionally. He promised Camila a senior role at Whitmore, shares in the new subsidiary, and a public future together once the restructuring was complete.
“Did you believe him?” Victoria asked.
“I wanted to.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Camila admitted that the photograph had not been part of Julian’s plan. She sent it because he postponed leaving Victoria again.
“I thought if you saw us, you would end the marriage for him.”
“So you tried to humiliate me into doing what he lacked the courage to do.”
Camila lowered her eyes. “Yes.”
Victoria felt no pity, but the confession stripped away Camila’s glamorous confidence. She was not a mastermind. She was a willing participant who discovered too late that Julian had reserved no safe exit for her.
“What is on the drive?”
“Recordings. Contracts. Messages with Halcyon’s chairman.”
“Why did you copy them?”
“Because I overheard Julian say my name during a call. He told someone that if the investigation began, they could blame the data leak on the emotional employee who had become obsessed with him.”
Victoria was unsurprised. “He planned to sacrifice you.”
“And you.”
“He already tried.”
Camila slid the drive forward. Victoria did not touch it.
“Why should I believe these files are real?”
“You shouldn’t. Verify them.”
“Why help me?”
“I’m helping myself.”
“That answer I believe.”
The investigators created a forensic copy. The drive contained recordings of Julian discussing the asset transfer with Harrison Vale, chairman of Halcyon Freight. In the clearest recording, Harrison promised Julian twenty percent ownership of the new subsidiary and a thirty-million-dollar payment after Whitmore collapsed.
Then Julian said something that made Victoria’s blood turn cold.
Once the company fails, Victoria will have to sell the Beverly Hills property and most of her family holdings to satisfy the guarantees. She’ll fight, but she doesn’t know where the bodies are buried.
Harrison laughed. Everyone has a body buried somewhere.
Mine is named Marcus Lee, Julian replied.
Victoria replayed the sentence.
Marcus had discovered the missing funds. Julian had threatened him into resigning, but perhaps the threat went deeper.
She called Marcus immediately. He did not answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Elena contacted his wife, who said Marcus had left that morning to meet a former Whitmore accountant. He had not returned.
At 4:20 P.M., police found Marcus’s car abandoned near a warehouse owned by one of Halcyon’s shell companies.
The investigation changed from corporate fraud to possible kidnapping.
Julian denied involvement. Through his attorney, he claimed Camila had fabricated the recordings after he ended their relationship. But the hotel security system showed Julian leaving his suite at 3:26 A.M., shortly after Victoria forwarded the photograph. He had driven directly to an office used by Halcyon.
Victoria refused to go home. She worked from the boardroom while detectives examined Marcus’s last calls. At eight that evening, Daniel Ruiz found a hidden tracking file Marcus had installed on his laptop. It pointed toward the Port of Los Angeles.
Elena warned Victoria not to interfere with the police operation.
“I’m not going to the port,” Victoria said. “But I know why Marcus was taken.”
She opened the archived records. Marcus had found evidence of another scheme—falsified safety inspections on shipping containers. Several containers had transported hazardous materials without proper declarations. If exposed, the violations could send Julian and Harrison to prison.
Victoria contacted federal investigators and turned over the files.
At 10:14 P.M., authorities raided a storage facility near the port. They found Marcus tied to a chair inside an office, bruised but alive. Two Halcyon contractors were arrested while attempting to destroy documents.
Marcus called Victoria from the ambulance.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“I should have told you sooner.”
“You were protecting your family.”
“I was also protecting myself.”
“So was I.”
The silence between them carried years of regret.
“Victoria,” Marcus said, “Julian didn’t begin moving assets because the company was failing.”
“I know.”
“He began because he discovered something in the original ownership agreement.”
“What?”
“You retained controlling rights if fraud by an executive threatened the company. Your father insisted on that clause when he guaranteed the first loan.”
Victoria remembered her father distrusting Julian’s ambition. She had accused him of being unfair.
“If the Board confirms fraud,” Marcus continued, “Julian loses his voting power. It transfers to you.”
That was why Julian needed the emergency vote. He had discovered the clause and planned to complete the transfer before anyone invoked it.
The selfie had arrived only six hours before his scheme would have succeeded.
Victoria looked across the empty boardroom at the city lights.
The cruelest message of her life had become the warning that saved everything.
But Julian was not finished.
At 11:03 P.M., the mansion’s security company called. Someone had entered the property using Julian’s access code.
Victoria opened the camera feed on her phone.
Julian stood inside her home office, emptying files into a metal trash bin. He poured liquor over them and struck a match.
Flames rose toward the curtains.
May you like
Victoria watched her husband set fire to the house they had shared for fifteen years.
Then the camera feed went black.
