Chapter 4 - The Cracks in the Armor
The next morning started with pristine quiet. Sunshine poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of our kitchen as I brewed fresh coffee. Emily was sitting at the island, holding Nathan on her lap as he babbled happily, reaching for a silicone spoon.
"Your phone has been buzzing on the counter every ten minutes," Emily observed, pointing to my device, which was lit up with notifications.
I picked it up. There were twelve missed calls from my mother, five from my father, and—surprisingly—three text messages from Amanda, Jason’s wife.
I tapped on Amanda’s messages first.
Brian, I am so, so sorry about last night. What Jason said was unforgivable. I left your parents' house right after you guys did. I couldn't even look at him.
A second text followed ten minutes later:
He’s been lying to the family, Brian. He’s been lying to everyone for over a year.
I frowned, passing the phone to Emily. "Read this."
Emily read the screen, her brows furrowing. "Lying about what?"
Before I could answer, my phone rang again. It wasn't my parents. It was Marcus, my Chief Financial Officer and long-time business partner.
"Hey, Marcus," I answered, putting him on speaker. "Happy day after Thanksgiving."
"Hey, Brian. Sorry to bother you on a holiday weekend," Marcus said, his voice unusually heavy. "But I just got a flagged notification from our legal compliance team. Someone tried to access our private investor portal last night using a restricted corporate identity check."
"Who?"
"The IP address was traced back to a boutique consulting firm in town—Vanguard Strategy Group. Does that name sound familiar?"
My blood ran cold. Vanguard Strategy Group was the company Jason worked for—or rather, the company where he claimed to be a Senior Partner.
"Why would Vanguard be poking around our private investor logs?" I asked.
"That's the thing," Marcus replied. "They weren't looking at our general operations. Someone logged in using a credentials request under the name Jason Miller, claiming to represent a distressed equity firm attempting to verify collateral on a high-risk personal loan."
Emily gasped softly, covering her mouth.
May you like
It all clicked into place. Jason’s flashy car. The expensive watches he wore to family dinners. His constant boasting about his investments.
He wasn't thriving. He was drowning. And last night, when he saw that I wasn't the broke, struggling failure he had painted me to be, he realized his entire life of smoke and mirrors was about to collapse.
