Chapter 6 - Unraveling the Web
The question hung in the air of the bridal suite, heavy and suffocating.
Owen glanced at me, his eyes cautious. We had discussed this exact moment. The truth was uncomfortable, but lies were what had brought this entire family to the brink of ruin.
"Forty-eight hours," I answered honestly.
Thomas let out a ragged breath. "How did you get it?"
"Marissa," I said.
Marissa was Blaire’s former maid of honor from her wedding three years ago—and Julian Vance’s ex-fiancée. Julian had dumped Marissa via text message eighteen months ago after five years together. When Marissa discovered that Blaire and Julian were meeting at the Aspen resort where her family held a corporate membership, she didn't just get mad. She hired a private investigator to pull the terrace surveillance logs through her father’s security contact at the resort.
"Marissa brought it to me two days before the rehearsal dinner," I explained, leaning closer to the phone. "She knew Blaire was planning to hijack my wedding. Blaire had been bragging to her old sorority group chat that she had an 'earth-shattering announcement' that would make my bridal spotlight look like a candle in the sun. Marissa gave me the drive and told me to protect myself."
"And you gave Blaire a chance to back down," Thomas said. It wasn't a question; it was a realization.
"Yesterday afternoon," I confirmed. "I met Blaire for coffee. I told her to keep the reception about Owen and me. I told her that if she tried to pull any stunts, if she tried to turn my wedding into her personal press conference, I would drop a bomb she couldn't recover from. I didn't tell her what I had, but I warned her."
"And she laughed at you," Thomas murmured.
"She told me that nobody cared about my plain, boring wedding anyway," I said quietly. "She said people were only coming out of pity because Mom forced them to."
On the other end of the line, Thomas let out a dark, mirthless laugh. "That sounds like her. God, how was I so blind? For five years, Leah. Five years I bought every excuse, every headache, every weekend trip. When she didn't want to be intimate, she said it was stress from trying to conceive. Meanwhile, she was..."
His voice choked off. He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.
"Thomas," Owen spoke up, leaning over my shoulder. "Listen to me. Have you spoken to your firm's accountant yet?"
"I tried calling David an hour ago," Thomas said, pulling himself together with visible effort. "He picked up. He was already at the office. Julian showed up there at ten tonight, Leah. While we were at the reception. Julian went into the firm's private server room."
Owen’s posture went rigid. "Did David stop him?"
"Julian wiped his local machine," Thomas replied. "He wiped the project files for the lakeside condominium build. But David caught the remote access logs. Julian didn't realize David had set up an off-site cloud mirror last quarter. Everything he deleted was backed up to an AWS server in Virginia."
"Did Julian take money?" I asked.
"Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars," Thomas said, the numbers sounding flat and dead on his tongue. "Diverted through a shell company called 'Vance Consulting Group' over the last eight months. Some of the invoices were approved by a digital signature using Blaire’s personal email."
My breath caught. "Blaire signed off on firm embezzlement?"
"She was listed as an external design consultant on three private bids," Thomas explained. "Julian set it up so she could receive retainers without me seeing it on the primary firm ledger. She wasn't just sleeping with him, Leah. They were systematically draining my company."
The scope of the betrayal was staggering. This wasn't just a petty family rivalry or a dramatic case of infidelity. It was a coordinated, criminal scheme designed to strip Thomas of his financial foundation while using his father's inheritance to fund their lifestyle.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I’m meeting my attorney at seven in the morning," Thomas said, his voice hardening into steel. "I’m filing for an emergency annulment based on fraud, and I'm handing the AWS server logs over to the district attorney's office. And Leah?"
"Yes?"
"I need that footage. The high-res uncompressed copy with the audio track. The DA is going to want proof of conspiracy between them."
"I'll have Noah email the master archive to your attorney’s secure portal tonight," Owen promised. "You'll have everything by three in the morning."
"Thank you, Owen. Leah... congratulations on your wedding. I’m sorry I couldn't say it earlier."
"Thank you, Thomas. Be safe."
The call ended.
I set the phone down on the nightstand. The silence in the bridal suite returned, but the air felt heavier now, thick with the gathering clouds of an inevitable legal thunderstorm.
Owen reached out and gently pulled me against his chest. I rested my forehead against his shoulder, letting out a long, ragged breath that felt like the end of an era.
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"It’s not over, is it?" I whispered into the dark.
"No," Owen said, kissing the crown of my head. "Tomorrow, your mother is going to realize that Blaire isn't just disgraced—she’s facing prison time. And that’s when the real war begins."
