Chapter 2 - The Debt Remembered
Brooklyn stared at the television screen in absolute disbelief.
Bradley was wiping away fake tears while lying to the entire city.
She wasn't pregnant.
Her medical records proved she could barely conceive naturally, let alone be three months along.
“He’s using a fake pregnancy to double the wrongful death payout from the insurance company,” she whispered.
Winston muted the television, crossing his arms over his chest.
“He is greedy, and greedy men are incredibly easy to trap,” Winston said.
Brooklyn finally looked away from her husband’s treacherous face.
“Why are you doing this for me?” she asked.
Winston stepped closer to the bed, the heavy silver watch on his wrist catching the dim light.
“Five years ago, a man stumbled into the back alley behind a diner on 4th Street,” he began.
Brooklyn’s eyes widened as the memory hit her.
“He was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the ribs,” Winston continued.
“The police were looking for him, and so were the men who shot him.”
Brooklyn remembered the terrified, bleeding stranger who had begged her to hide him in the meat freezer.
She had covered his blood trail with bleach and lied directly to two armed detectives.
“That was you,” Brooklyn breathed.
Winston nodded slowly.
“You didn’t ask my name, you didn’t ask for money, you just kept me alive until my people arrived,” he said.
“I owe you a life, Brooklyn Whitfield.”
She looked down at her hands, the anger slowly replacing the trauma of the freezing water.
“I don’t want my life back,” she told him.
“I want to ruin his.”
Winston offered a sharp, dangerous smile.
“Then we have work to do.”
Over the next forty-eight hours, Winston’s estate became her war room.
He brought in a quiet, brilliant tech expert named Elias.
Elias cloned Brooklyn’s phone and bypassed the security on her joint banking accounts.
She sat in a leather chair, watching her entire financial history appear on a large monitor.
Bradley had already drained their checking account to pay for a luxury memorial service.
“He spent ten thousand dollars on catered food for my funeral,” Brooklyn said, her voice dripping with disgust.
“Look at the savings account,” Elias instructed, typing rapidly.
Brooklyn stared at the numbers.
The fifty thousand dollars her grandmother had left her was completely gone.
“Where did he transfer it?” she demanded.
Elias clicked a few keys to trace the routing number.
“It didn’t go to a bank,” Elias frowned.
“It went to a private offshore trust registered to a woman named Cassandra Vale.”
Brooklyn felt the room spin.
Cassandra Vale was her sister-in-law Vivian’s best friend.
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Bradley hadn't just murdered her for the insurance money.
He had been funding his mistress right under her nose.
