If I went to Elijah Vance with proof of Marcus’s fraud—specifically the fraud that had cost Elijah that deal—it was a long shot. He might laugh at me. He might turn me away. But he was the only person in Atlanta with enough power to shield me from Marcus’s legal team.
I dialed the number for Vance Enterprises. I knew it by heart. I had looked it up often enough when we were rivals.
“Vance Enterprises, Office of the Chairman,” a crisp voice answered.
“I need to speak to Mr. Vance immediately.”
“Mr. Vance is in meetings. May I ask what this is regarding?”
“Tell him it’s Simone Dubois,” I said. “Tell him I know how Marcus Sterling got the BeltLine acquisition rezoned, and tell him I have the emails.”
There was a pause.
“One moment, please.”
Thirty seconds later, a deep, gravelly voice came on the line.
“Mrs. Dubois. To what do I owe the pleasure? Did your husband send you to gloat?”
“My husband just fired me, drained my bank accounts, and put my sister in my house,” I said, my voice steady. “I’m not here to gloat, Mr. Vance. I’m here to burn him to ashes, and I thought you might want to bring the marshmallows.”
Silence.
Then a low chuckle.
“I’m listening.”
Before I went to meet Elijah Vance, there was one more wound I had to cauterize: a file I had been avoiding in the Sterling Ridge database.
Jerome’s trust fund.
Jerome was my soft spot. My Achilles’ heel. I had protected him from Marcus’s narcissism his entire life. When Marcus forgot Jerome’s birthday, I bought the gift and signed Marcus’s name. When Marcus missed Jerome’s soccer games, I told Jerome that Dad was working hard for our future. I had raised him to believe his father was a hero, covering up the truth that his father was a negligent egotist.
Now I realized that had been my biggest mistake.
I had protected Jerome from the truth, and in doing so I had allowed Marcus to buy his loyalty with lies.
I opened the trust-fund documents.
Marcus had recently modified the terms.
Originally, the fund was to be paid out at age twenty-five, conditional upon college graduation. The new terms, dated two weeks earlier, granted immediate access to a $200,000 cash distribution and transfer of title to a 2023 Porsche 911.
Attached to the file was correspondence.
Jerome had written: Dad, Mom is going to flip if I drop out next semester.
Marcus had replied: Mom isn’t going to be in charge much longer, Jay. She treats you like a child. I treat you like a man. You want the car? You want the cash? You just have to back me up when the time comes. You have to tell the lawyer Mom has been acting strange, that she’s unstable.
Jerome: Well, she has been kind of stressed lately.
Marcus: Exactly. She’s losing it. We have to protect the company. If you stick with me, I’ll make you VP of Acquisitions next year. No degree needed. You can learn on the job like I did.
Jerome: VP? Seriously? Okay, I’m in. What do I have to do?
I read the words, and my heart did not merely break.
It turned to dust.
VP of Acquisitions.
Jerome was failing Intro to Economics.
He spent his weekends playing video games and sleeping until noon. He wasn’t qualified to run a lemonade stand, much less a department in a multimillion-dollar company.
Marcus was setting him up to fail, stroking his ego so he could use him as a pawn against me.
And Jerome—my sweet boy—had sold his mother out for a Porsche and a title he had not earned.
I remembered the text from the night before.
Dad says he’ll cut off my tuition.
He wasn’t worried about tuition.
He was worried about easy money.
I pulled up Jerome’s credit-card statement—the one I had been paying.
Liquor store.
Nightclub.
Online gambling site.
Strip club.
He was in a downward spiral, and instead of parenting him, Marcus was funding it to buy an ally.
I picked up my burner phone and hesitated.
He was my son.
But the boy who had sat on that sofa and told me to accept reality was not the boy I raised. He was his father’s creation.
If I continued to cushion his fall, I would lose him forever to Marcus’s world of corruption and superficiality.
The only way to truly save him was to let him crash.
I typed a text message, but I did not send it. I merely wrote it and stared at the cursor.
Jerome, I saw the emails. I saw the car. You chose the easy way, but the easy way is a trap. When your father is done using you, he will discard you just like he discarded me. I love you enough to let you learn this the hard way. Good luck, Mr. Vice President.
I saved the draft.
Then I dried my eyes and navigated to the payroll system. Jerome had been on the intern payroll for three years despite never stepping foot in the office.
I removed him.
I couldn’t touch the trust fund. Marcus controlled it now.
