Chapter 5 - Midnight Visitors
"Who is that?" I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs as I looked from the front door back to Liam, whose face had turned the color of chalk.
"I don't know," Liam stammered, backing away from the hallway like he expected gunfire. "Nobody knows we're here. Nobody has this address except..." He stopped, his eyes widening in sheer terror. "...except Sarah."
The door handle rattled again. Then, a sharp, demanding voice called out from the porch.
"Liam! Open up! I know you're in there, your car is in the driveway!"
It wasn't Sarah's voice. It was a man's voice—deep, gravelly, and entirely unfamiliar.
Liam shrank back against the kitchen counter, his hands shaking so violently he could barely keep his balance. "That's not Sarah," he whispered. "That's Marcus Vance. The managing partner of my firm."
The blood rushed in my ears. The managing partner. At ten o'clock at night, showing up unannounced at our house. That meant the audit hadn't waited until tomorrow morning. They had found the discrepancy early.
"Open the door, Foster!" Marcus Vance called out again, pounding his fist against the wood with enough force to rattle the framed family photos hanging in the hallway. "I know you're home. And you better pray you have a damn good explanation for where forty-two thousand dollars of firm capital went, or the police are going to meet us at your office tomorrow morning."
Liam looked at me, his eyes wide with pleading desperation, tears finally spilling over his lashes. "Clara, please. You have to help me. Tell them I was working from home, tell them you knew about the funds, tell them anything—"
I stood frozen for a fraction of a second, looking at the man who had lied to my face, betrayed our vows, stolen our financial security, and tried to turn our entire life into a garbage heap of deceit.
The heavy pounding echoed through the house again, shaking the front door on its hinges.
Instead of moving toward the hallway to save him, I slowly turned around, walked past Liam into the kitchen, picked up my phone off the counter, and dialed three digits.
Liam stared at me in absolute horror, realizing what I was doing before I even spoke a word.
"What are you doing?" he screamed, lunging toward me. "Who are you calling?!"
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I held the phone to my ear, looking straight into the terrified, desperate eyes of the man who thought he could outsmart everyone in his life.
"Emergency services," I said clearly, never breaking eye contact. "I'm reporting an intruder on my property... and an active financial crime in progress."
