Chapter 6 - Blood and Business
Cassandra’s skin lost all its color. For two seconds, the polished, spiteful Southern belle facade crumbled entirely, revealing a frightened, desperate twenty-six-year-old girl who was drowning.
“You don't know what you’re talking about,” she stammered, her voice suddenly losing its venomous pitch.
“Don’t I?” I stepped around the marble counter and gestured toward the quiet library alcove off the main foyer. “Ladies,” I said to her three friends, who were still watching with morbid curiosity, “the Montgomery House will gladly comp your tea service if you give my sister and me five minutes of privacy. Otherwise, Marcus over there will show you the exit.”
Marcus took one step forward, his towering frame casting a long shadow across the lounge. The three friends didn't hesitate; they grabbed their bags, muttered awkward excuses, and scuttled out into the Savannah sunshine.
Cassandra stood frozen. I took her elbow—firmly, leaving no room for resistance—and guided her into the dim, wood-paneled library, closing the heavy pocket doors behind us.
“Sit down,” I ordered.
She dropped onto a green leather Chesterfield sofa, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were suddenly freezing in the Georgia heat.
“Derek didn’t make partner, did he?” I asked, standing over her.
Cassandra buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. When she looked up, tears were cutting clean tracks through her expensive foundation.
“He was *supposed* to,” she sobbed, her voice breaking. “He was the top associate for three years! But he… he got into high-stakes sports betting online two years ago. He thought he could hedge his bets using crypto, and he lost everything. Over four hundred thousand dollars.”
I stared at her, feeling a sick mixture of disgust and vindication. “And where did he get the money to cover his losses?”
“He borrowed it,” she whispered, barely audible. “From the firm’s escrow retainer account. He moved funds between client accounts, thinking he’d win it back on the market. But the firm announced an independent surprise audit this week because Arthur Vance is reviewing their books for the merger.”
The pieces of the puzzle slammed together in my mind with terrifying clarity.
“Derek didn't just borrow money,” I said, horrified. “He embezzled client funds. And the shortfall right now is sixty thousand dollars.”
“The auditors arrive on Monday morning!” Cassandra cried, grabbing my wrist with both hands, her fingernails digging through my sleeve. “Maya, if the audit finds the sixty-thousand-dollar hole, Derek won’t just be fired. He’ll be disbarred! He’ll go to federal prison! Dad found out three days ago. Dad promised he would fix it. He told Derek that you had the money, that you owed this family for leaving us!”
I pulled my arm back, recoiling from her touch as if she were carrying a plague.
“Dad knew?” I asked, my voice trembling with cold rage. “Dad knew his golden-boy son-in-law is a criminal, and instead of making him face the consequences, he came here to blackmail his own daughter? To threaten my life’s work to save a thief?”
“He’s my husband, Maya!” Cassandra screamed softly, tears streaming down her chin. “If he goes to prison, my life is over! Our house, my reputation, our friends—everything is gone! How can you be so heartless? You have the money sitting in this hotel's reserve accounts! It’s just numbers to you!”
“It’s not just numbers, Cassandra!” I flared, my voice hitting her like a whip crack. “It is seven years of my life! It’s eighty-hour work weeks, scrubbing toilets when the housekeepers didn't show up, eating canned beans so I could make payroll, fighting every single day to survive without a dime from you or Dad! And you want me to hand it over to a crook who looks down his nose at me?”
Cassandra’s expression hardened again, the desperation curdling back into ugly, cornered malice.
“Dad will do it, Maya,” she warned, wiping her mascara with the back of her hand. “He will call Arthur Vance tonight. If Derek goes down, Dad will take you down with us. He won't let you sit in this palace while his family burns.”
May you like
“Then let him try,” I said, walking to the pocket door and sliding it open. “Get out of my hotel, Cassandra.”
***
