Chapter 8 - Retaliation
By that afternoon, Maya had arrived at my house with two locksmiths and a private investigator named Frank.
While the locksmiths drilled out every deadbolt on the exterior doors and installed high-security electronic keypads with rotating codes, Maya sat with me at the kitchen table, methodically drafting legal motions.
"We filed for an emergency annulment based on fraud, misrepresentation, and criminal conversion," Maya said, sliding a thick stack of papers toward me to sign. "Because the marriage lasted less than a week and Vance committed multiple felonies involving marital assets within that timeframe, the judge will grant an immediate preliminary asset freeze."
"What about the bank account?" I asked, sipping a cup of cold tea. "Can I recover the fifteen thousand I deposited?"
"Frank is already tracking the wire," Maya nodded toward the burly, gray-haired investigator who was typing on a ruggedized laptop across the room.
"Wire was sent to a shell LLC called 'Bayside Retail Holdings,'" Frank said without looking up. "Which is an account managed directly by Tatum Montgomery. But here’s the interesting part, Sloan. Tatum didn't send that money to a bookmaker."
I looked up, stunned. "What?"
Frank turned his laptop screen toward me. "The transaction ledger from Tatum’s business account shows the twenty-eight thousand five hundred hit her balance yesterday at 2:15 PM. At 2:45 PM, twenty-five thousand was wired straight out again. Not to a loan shark. Not to an offshore betting syndicate."
"Then where did it go?"
"Into an offshore high-yield certificate of deposit registered under the names of Evelyn Montgomery and Vance Montgomery," Frank said, a grim smile touching his lips. "The whole loan shark story? The bookmaker threatening Greg’s legs? Complete fiction. Vance played the pathetic, terrified victim to get you to back down, and when that failed, he used it as an excuse to police officers to make it look like coercion."
A suffocating chill settled over the room.
Vance hadn’t been trapped. He hadn’t been desperate.
He and his mother had planned this from the very beginning. They targeted a single woman who owned a valuable piece of real estate, seduced me into a quick courthouse wedding, and immediately executed a scheme to drain my liquidity and borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars against my equity to fund their own offshore investments.
"They're con artists," I whispered.
"They're professionals," Frank corrected. "I ran a background check on Evelyn’s late husband. He died eight years ago under suspicious bankruptcy circumstances. Left three different business partners with millions in debt while Evelyn somehow managed to buy a beachfront condo in cash six months later. Vance was just following the family playbook."
"Can we freeze the offshore CD?" I asked Maya, my voice trembling with outrage.
"Not immediately," Maya admitted. "International asset recovery takes months. But we have Vance in a local holding cell right now. The county prosecutor is reviewing the forged power of attorney charges. If he wants to see the outside of a state penitentiary before his fortieth birthday, he’s going to have to repatriate every single dollar."
Before Maya could finish her sentence, my phone buzzed on the table.
It was an unknown number with a local area code.
I tapped speakerphone. "Hello?"
"Sloan," a voice hissed. It wasn't Vance. It was Tatum.
"Tatum, you are violating a police warning," I said.
May you like
"Listen to me, you stupid bitch," Tatum snarled, her voice thick with panic and venom. "You think you're clever because you got Vance locked up? My mom just posted his bail bond through a private surety. He's being processed right now. He'll be out in two hours. And when he walks out of that jail, you're going to regret ever messing with us. You have no idea who my mother knows."
***
