She smiled into her phone as red wine poured down the front of my white shirt

I realized Lauren was playing a game far more dangerous than simple bullying.

Her firm, Sterling Financial, was actively fabricating legal documents to destroy me.

I knew I could not fight a multi-billion-dollar company in a standard courtroom.

Ethan offered to use his corporate hackers to quietly break into Sterling Financial’s private servers.

I agreed, completely desperate to find any leverage I could use against her.

It took the hackers three hours to bypass the firewalls.

They discovered something far worse than forged recipe copyrights.

Lauren had been secretly embezzling millions of dollars from her elderly clients for years.

She was using the stolen money to fund her lavish lifestyle and buy up commercial real estate.

I finally had the ultimate weapon to destroy her entirely.

I downloaded all the financial evidence onto an encrypted flash drive.

I planned to bypass Lauren entirely and hand the evidence directly to the CEO of Sterling Financial.

I drove to their massive glass headquarters and marched past the security desk.

I took the private elevator all the way up to the executive penthouse suite.

I pushed open the heavy mahogany doors to the CEO’s office.

I was ready to demand that Lauren be fired and my lease be restored.

Instead, I froze in absolute terror at the sight in front of me.

The CEO was lying dead on the pristine white carpet in a massive pool of blood.

Before I could even scream, the office doors slammed shut behind me.

When my newborn 'passed away,' my mother-in-law leaned in and said

My Husband Left Me Alone in My Car While I Was in Labor

“You’re Dead When We Get Home,” He Snapped

A dozen armed police officers burst into the room with their guns drawn.

They screamed at me to drop to the ground and arrested me for murder.

Chapter 6 - The Embezzlement