Chapter 10 - The Night Tyler Lost Everything
Karin stumbled out.
Alive.
Someone had attacked her when she came home.
She fought back.
The intruder escaped.
At the hospital, she identified him from an old Vance security photograph.
Marcus’s former deputy.
Cole Mercer.
Cole had copied the ledger before Marcus’s arrest.
He was selling silence to everyone named inside it.
And he believed I had the only unredacted version.
Federal agents moved us to a secure location.
Tyler heard about the attack.
He requested another meeting.
This time, he had useful information.
“Cole has a place in Queens.”
Agents searched it.
They found weapons, passports and surveillance photographs.
Most were of me.
One showed Bellarosa.
Our anniversary dinner.
Cole had been there.
Then investigators found an audio file.
Daniel speaking to Cole.
“If Giana leaves Tyler, activate the contingency.”
“What contingency?” I asked.
Tyler went pale.
He knew.
A life insurance policy.
Twenty-five million dollars.
Purchased three years earlier.
Beneficiary: Tyler Vance.
My signature had been forged.
Again.
Tyler insisted Daniel arranged it.
Investigators believed him about that.
But the revelation destroyed whatever remained of his public reputation.
The media called him a husband who had profited from a plan to kill his wife.
Legally, that was not yet proven.
Emotionally, I no longer cared.
Cole was arrested two days later trying to cross into Canada.
The threat ended.
Tyler’s plea agreement followed.
Seven years.
Reduced for cooperation.
Before sentencing, I attended one final meeting.
Not because he deserved closure.
Because I did.
He looked at me through the glass.
“I keep thinking about Bellarosa.”
“So do I.”
“If Karin hadn’t walked in—”
“You would have kept lying.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
That was the first answer from him that didn’t contain an excuse.
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
He almost looked relieved.
“I don’t want to spend enough of my life thinking about you to hate you.”
That hurt him.
But it was true.
I removed my wedding ring.
Placed it on the table.
Not for him.
For me.
When I walked outside, reporters waited.
I ignored them.
Adrian opened the car door.
“You’re free.”
“Not yet.”
My divorce hearing was the following morning.
It lasted eleven minutes.
Five years ended with signatures.
When I returned to Vance Tower, employees applauded.
I hated that.
This wasn’t victory.
It was survival.
That evening, Richard came to my office.
He carried the velvet box from Bellarosa.
“How did you get that?”
“The restaurant kept it after everything happened.”
Inside was Tyler’s restored watch.
I had forgotten it.
Richard turned it over.
Something rattled.
We opened the back.
A tiny memory card fell out.
I stared.
“I didn’t put that there.”
Neither had Richard.
We loaded it.
A single video appeared.
My mother filled the screen.
She looked directly into the camera.
“If Giana is watching this, then Daniel found her.”
She paused.
“There is one last thing she must know about the Vance family.”
The video froze.
Then someone knocked on my office door.
Three slow knocks.
May you like
A woman’s voice called my name.
And Richard whispered, “That voice belongs to your mother.”
