Chapter 5 - The Midpoint Shift
The ink on Richard Gable’s signed affidavit was barely dry when my phone buzzed violently in my hand. It wasn't a call. It was a push notification from an encrypted news aggregator tracking private aviation telemetry.
Prescott Technologies CEO Aaron Prescott’s private charter diverted unexpectedly to O’Hare International Airport following an emergency corporate conference call.
Julian glanced at his tablet, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Well, that didn't take long. Vanguard Horizon just officially pulled their fifty-million-dollar Series D tranche. The board is holding an emergency vote via satellite link right now, and they're demanding an immediate in-person explanation from Aaron the second his wheels touch the tarmac."
I slipped the signed affidavit into my leather folder and handed it to Marcus, who tucked it away with an expression of grim satisfaction. "Good. Let him walk into an empty boardroom where his investors are waiting with pitchforks."
"There's just one problem, Alyssa," Julian said, his fingers pausing over his keyboard as he pulled up a secondary security log from the private terminal in Chicago. "Aaron didn't just fly alone with Jasmine and his executive team. According to the updated manifest filed right before takeoff... his mother was on board that flight too."
I stopped dead in my tracks. My mother-in-law—the woman who had sat two seats away from me on that jet, sneering with open contempt as she told me to be considerate of Jasmine—was currently flying into the eye of a financial hurricane with her precious son.
"So?" I said, though a strange, cold intuition began to prick at the back of my mind. "She’s always supported whatever cruel thing Aaron wanted to do. Let her share the embarrassment."
"It's not just about embarrassment," Julian said, spinning his tablet around so I could see a complex asset-tracing chart. "When we ran the preliminary background check on the shell company holding those biometric patents—the one registered to Jasmine’s brother—we found a secondary beneficiary listed on the corporate registry. A silent partner who provided the initial funding to set up the shell entity six months ago."
I stared at the screen, watching the encrypted corporate veil peel away to reveal a name that made the lobby lights seem to dim around me.
It wasn't Aaron. And it wasn't Jasmine.
It was my own mother-in-law.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the group as the full, horrifying scope of the betrayal clicked into place. It wasn't just Aaron pushing me out to make room for his new secretary; it was a coordinated family conspiracy designed to systematically bleed my family trust dry while keeping me isolated, humiliated, and legally sidelined in my own marriage.
My phone buzzed again in my hand. This time, it was a direct incoming call from an unsaved satellite number.
The Caller ID flashed: Aaron Prescott.
May you like
I looked at Marcus and Julian, took a deep breath, and slid my thumb across the screen to accept the call.
"Alyssa," Aaron’s voice roared through the speaker, frantic, furious, and utterly unhinged, underscored by the deafening background roar of jet engines touching down on a runway. "What the hell did you just do to our servers?!"
