Chapter 3 - The Secret Account
I stared at the zero balance on the screen, my mind racing to comprehend how Daniel had bypassed the bank's security protocols.
The trust fund was supposed to require both of our signatures for any withdrawal exceeding a thousand dollars.
I immediately called the emergency fraud hotline for my bank, demanding an explanation.
The representative on the other end nervously explained that the withdrawal had been authorized using a pre-signed document I allegedly submitted three days ago.
I had signed no such document.
Daniel had forged my signature, likely slipping the paperwork into a stack of routine tax documents he asked me to sign before my business trip.
My hands shook with rage as I realized how long he had been planning this betrayal.
He didn't just want a free ride; he was actively preparing to rob my daughter of her future.
I spent the next three hours sitting at the hotel desk, meticulously tracing the destination of the stolen funds.
Because I was the primary account holder, I had access to the routing numbers of the recent wire transfers.
The money had not gone into Daniel's personal checking or Olivia's household account.
It had been wired to an offshore escrow account registered under a shell LLC.
I used my corporate connections and a private investigator I kept on retainer to run the LLC's registration details.
By 4:00 a.m., my investigator emailed me the heavily encrypted file containing the results.
The shell company had recently been used to purchase a million-dollar luxury townhouse in a wealthy suburban neighborhood just outside the city.
The property was not registered in Daniel’s name, nor was it in the name of anyone from his family.
The deed was officially registered to a woman named Chloe Sterling.
I searched her name online and immediately found her public social media profiles.
She was young, beautiful, and wearing an engagement ring that looked suspiciously like the custom diamond I had "lost" during a vacation last year.
Her most recent photo showed her posing in the kitchen of the new townhouse.
The caption read, "Can't wait to start our new family here, D."
My stomach turned as the pieces finally fell into place.
The lavish dinners, the constant demands for more money, and the blatant neglect of our daughter were not just signs of laziness.
They were part of a calculated strategy to drain my resources while Daniel funded his secret double life.
I closed the laptop and walked over to the bed, gently brushing a stray curl away from Emma’s face.
I was no longer just filing for divorce.
I was going to utterly destroy him.
My phone screen suddenly lit up in the dark, vibrating silently on the nightstand.
May you like
It was an automated alert from my office building's security system.
Someone was currently using Daniel's old corporate keycard to bypass the executive elevators and access my private office floor.
