Chapter 8 - The Hidden Ledger
I took the manila envelope from Chloe’s hands, my fingers sliding the heavy cardstock flap open. Inside were several printed bank statements and a handwritten leather-bound ledger bearing Dennis’s neat, meticulous accounting handwriting.
I flipped open the ledger to the bookmarked page.
My breath caught in my throat.
For the past four years—ever since I returned from my final military tour and sank my separation severance and inheritance into our veterinary clinic and farm—Dennis had been systematically draining our joint accounts. Not just skimming a few hundred dollars here and there. He had transferred over three hundred thousand dollars into a private offshore shell account registered in the Cayman Islands under Serena’s name.
Worse still, attached to the back of the ledger was a signed deed-transfer document dated two weeks ago, attempting to sign over our family farm and veterinary clinic property to a commercial real estate developer in Omaha without my knowledge or consent.
He hadn't just betrayed our marriage and abused our daughter. He had planned to strip me of my livelihood, sell the land my grandfather built, and leave us with nothing.
“He was planning to abandon you and Meadow entirely,” Chloe murmured, reading over my shoulder. “Tori... what are you going to do?”
I closed the ledger, the sound sharp and definitive in the small observation room. The sorrow I had felt earlier that evening was entirely gone, incinerated by a cold, calculating resolve.
“Chloe,” I said, turning to look at my young assistant. “Go back to the clinic. Call Arthur Vance—not the local family attorney, but my old military JAG contact who handles corporate asset forfeiture. Tell him we are expanding the charges from domestic assault to financial fraud, grand larceny, and premeditated property theft.”
Chloe nodded, her eyes wide with fierce loyalty. “On it, Tori.”
May you like
I stood up, adjusting the collar of my field jacket, and walked out of the observation room toward the main corridor where Serena Lane was currently being held in a holding cell across the hall.
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