Chapter 12 - A Web of Lies
The revelation that my father had locked my mother in a foreign asylum made me physically sick to my stomach.
He had spent my entire life telling me beautiful, tragic stories about how she died in a terrible rainstorm when I was just an infant.
I realized with terrifying clarity that the man who saved me from my abusive husband might be a far greater monster himself.
The next morning, I told my father’s security team that I was taking Emma to a private indoor playground in the city.
Instead, I drove to a discreet, unmarked office building in the industrial district to meet with Thomas.
Thomas had brought along an independent private investigator named Marcus, a former intelligence officer who specialized in hunting ghosts.
I placed the wooden box, the locket, and the miniature asylum document onto Marcus's metal desk.
Marcus examined the intake form under a magnifying glass, his expression darkening with every passing second.
He confirmed that the Swiss facility was shut down a decade ago after multiple investigations into human rights abuses.
It was a place where billionaires paid exorbitant amounts of money to make inconvenient family members disappear forever.
"If your father committed her, he likely seized control of her family's assets through a conservatorship," Marcus explained grimly.
The massive fortune that I had just fought a cartel and my ex-husband to protect might not even belong to my father.
It belonged to the woman rotting in a European nightmare.
"We need to know exactly what Margaret knew about this," Thomas suggested, leaning against the office wall.
"Margaret was blackmailing Richard Thorne, but maybe she was also planning to blackmail your father before she was caught."
A sickening realization washed over me as I connected the dots of my horrific marriage.
David hadn't just married me for my father's money; Margaret had targeted me because she knew the dark origin of our wealth.
I looked at Thomas, my heart pounding with a newfound, ruthless determination.
May you like
I told him to arrange a private visitation at the federal penitentiary.
It was time to look my ex-husband in the eyes one last time and extract the ugly truth he had been hiding.
