Chapter 7 - The Other Woman's Shadow
"You're bluffing," Preston muttered, but his voice lacked any conviction. "You wouldn't send your own husband to prison. It would ruin you. You'd lose the house, the neighborhood standing, everything."
"You already ruined it, Preston," Ellie said, stepping closer. "You ruined it when you brought that girl to our company retreat and introduced her as 'the future of commercial analytics.' You ruined it when you let her wear a diamond pendant bought with my mother's estate money. And you definitely ruined it when you humiliated my father on the floor he helped pay for."
Before Preston could formulate a lie, his smartphone vibrated violently against the marble island.
The screen illuminated: *Mark Halloway.*
Preston lunged for the phone, snatching it like a starving dog grabbing a dropped bone. He held up a finger, glaring at us as if ordering us to stay silent, then pressed the speaker button with trembling hands.
"Mark! Good morning," Preston said, instantly switching on his smooth, buttery sales persona. "I was just reviewing the revised prospectus for the Willow Creek site. I can have the amended terms on your desk by noon—"
"Save your breath, Preston," Mark Halloway's gravelly voice boomed through the kitchen speaker. There was no warmth, no corporate pleasantry, nothing but the iron-cold detachment of an apex predator closing an account.
Preston froze. "Mark... what do you mean?"
"Vanessa Cole submitted her resignation forty minutes ago," Mark said flatly.
Preston gasped, his eyes darting wildly across the ceiling. "She... she what?"
"She came to my office at seven-thirty, Preston. With a lawyer," Mark continued, each word landing like a sledgehammer against Preston's skull. "It turns out she was quite concerned about certain... irregularities in the acquisition filings for CV Holdings. She wanted full immunity before our compliance team discovered that you had been diverting client escrow deposits into an unlisted shell company to secure personal lines of credit."
"Mark, that’s a lie! She’s setting me up—"
"Linda told me what happened at your dinner table last night, Preston," Mark cut in, his voice dropping into utter disgust. "A man who treats his wife's elderly father like an animal over a spilled piece of dessert is a man with no character, no discipline, and no moral bottom. But a man who commits wire fraud while looking me in the eye? That's a man who belongs in federal court."
"Mark, please, give me an hour—"
"The Willow Creek project has been reassigned to Miller & Associates. My legal team is forwarding our audit findings to the district attorney by eleven o'clock. Do not contact me again, Preston. Do not contact anyone in my firm."
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The line went dead with a harsh, sharp tone.
Preston stood in the sunlit kitchen, the silence rushing back in to choke him. The smartphone slipped from his fingers, hitting the quartz counter with a loud crack that echoed across the high ceiling.
