Chapter 3 - The Six-Digit Combination
By sunrise, Rebecca was sitting alone in the hospital cafeteria.
She hadn't slept.
She had barely eaten.
Across from her sat Marcus.
He looked like a man who had aged ten years overnight.
“My wife,” he whispered.
Rebecca said nothing.
“She told me she was visiting her mother.”
“I know.”
“She lied to me.”
“Yes.”
Marcus rubbed his hands over his face.
“Julian is my brother.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“I know.”
“And Clarissa…”
He couldn't finish.
Rebecca understood.
She had spent the last three days refusing to let herself think about the betrayal.
Now Marcus was living through the first hour of it.
“I don't know what to do,” he said.
Rebecca answered honestly.
“Neither do I.”
Marcus looked at her.
“You seem calm.”
“I've already cried.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
She looked down at her coffee.
“Today I'm working.”
That was Rebecca.
Pain could wait.
Evidence couldn't.
David arrived at eight.
He placed a laptop on the table.
“I traced another group of transfers.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Where?”
“Several shell companies.”
“Owned by whom?”
“That is the problem.”
He turned the laptop around.
The corporate registration records appeared on the screen.
Rebecca stared.
“No.”
David nodded.
“Yes.”
The companies were indirectly connected to Vance & Sterling.
But not through Julian.
Through a holding structure created years earlier.
Rebecca's grandfather had founded the company.
Her father had expanded it.
Rebecca had later become CFO.
Then Julian entered the picture.
He had never worked for the company.
At least, not officially.
David continued.
“Someone has been moving money through entities that appear unrelated.”
Rebecca scanned the documents.
“These were created before I married Julian.”
“Yes.”
“Who established them?”
David hesitated.
“Your father.”
Rebecca's stomach dropped.
“My father?”
“Richard Vance.”
Julian's father.
He had died two years earlier.
Rebecca remembered the funeral.
The arguments over the estate.
The debts.
The properties.
The board meetings.
She remembered Julian asking her to help stabilize the company.
She remembered saying yes.
At the time, she thought she was saving her husband's family.
Now she wondered if she had been helping them hide something.
“How much?”
David gave her a number.
Rebecca stared at it.
Millions.
Far more than she had expected.
Marcus read the screen.
“What does this mean?”
Rebecca answered.
“It means someone has been stealing from the company.”
David shook his head.
“Not stealing exactly.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Then what?”
“Diverting.”
She almost laughed.
“That's the polite word?”
David didn't smile.
“I'm trying to keep this precise.”
Rebecca closed the laptop.
“Where does the money go?”
David looked at her.
“That's what the safe may tell us.”
Rebecca thought about Julian's face when she had asked for the combination.
He hadn't been afraid of the affair.
He hadn't been afraid of divorce.
He hadn't even been afraid of losing the company.
He had been terrified of the safe.
That was the clue.
Later that morning, Rebecca returned home.
The house felt different.
Her bedroom felt contaminated by memory.
She stood in the doorway.
The bed had already been stripped.
She walked to Julian's office.
The door was locked.
She entered.
His desk was immaculate.
Too immaculate.
Rebecca had always noticed that Julian was careful with paperwork.
But now she noticed something else.
There was a painting on the wall.
An old landscape.
She had never liked it.
She walked closer.
Nothing.
She checked the desk.
Nothing.
The safe wasn't there.
She called David.
“Are you sure the safe is in this office?”
“Yes.”
“I'm looking at the room.”
“Check behind the cabinet.”
Rebecca moved toward the bookcase.
Nothing.
Then she noticed a slight gap between two panels.
She pressed.
A section shifted.
Behind it was a steel door.
Rebecca's pulse raced.
She entered the combination.
Six digits.
The lock clicked.
She opened the door.
Inside were folders.
A passport.
Several bank cards.
A stack of photographs.
And a black notebook.
Rebecca picked up the notebook.
The first page contained a list of names.
Some she recognized.
Some she didn't.
Then she saw her own name.
REBECCA VANCE — CONTROLLED ASSET
Her hands went cold.
She turned the page.
There were notes.
Her inheritance.
Her voting rights.
Her family shares.
Her personal accounts.
Her marriage.
Everything had been cataloged.
She read another line.
Objective: Maintain marital status until voting control is secured.
Rebecca stopped breathing.
The next page contained Julian's handwriting.
She recognized it immediately.
She had seen it on anniversary cards.
On grocery lists.
On notes he left beside her coffee.
Now that same handwriting was outlining a plan to take control of her family's assets.
Rebecca kept reading.
There were references to offshore accounts.
Shell companies.
A lawyer.
And someone called M.
She called David.
“I found it.”
“What?”
“The evidence.”
“Don't touch anything else.”
“Too late.”
“Rebecca, listen to me.”
She looked around the room.
“What?”
“If that notebook is what I think it is, you need to leave the house.”
“Why?”
“Because if Julian realizes you found it…”
The sentence remained unfinished.
Rebecca understood.
She took photographs of every page.
Then she placed everything exactly where she found it.
Before leaving, she noticed a second folder.
The label was handwritten.
VANCE FAMILY — FINAL TRANSFER
She opened it.
Inside was a draft agreement.
Rebecca's name appeared at the top.
The document would transfer her voting rights.
All of them.
To Julian.
The signature line was blank.
But there was a note beneath it.
Execute immediately following pregnancy announcement.
Rebecca's hands began trembling.
She remembered the day she had told Julian she was pregnant.
He had hugged her.
He had cried.
He had kissed her forehead.
He had told her she was the most important person in his world.
Now she wondered whether that had been the happiest day of his life…
or the day his plan finally seemed possible.
Her phone rang.
David.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes?”
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“You need to get out.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus just called me.”
“What happened?”
David's voice was low.
“Julian has been asking the hospital whether you've returned home.”
Rebecca froze.
“He knows.”
“I think he suspects something.”
She grabbed her coat.
“I'm leaving.”
“Good.”
Then David added:
“There is one more thing.”
“What?”
“The name marked M?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Yes?”
“It isn't Marcus.”
“Then who is it?”
David paused.
“Your husband knows.”
Rebecca's heart pounded.
“Knows what?”
May you like
“That someone inside the family has been helping him.”
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