Chapter 4 - BLOOD MONEY AND FAMILY SECRETS
My father-in-law, Arthur Vance—no relation to the detective—was a man I hadn't spoken to in four years. He was a disgraced former real estate developer who had served three years in federal prison for bankruptcy fraud before being released on supervised parole. Irene had cut all ties with him before we married, claiming his financial recklessness had ruined her mother’s life.
Or so she had told me.
I left the precinct at 5:30 a.m. The sky over the McDowell Mountains was turning a pale, bruised purple. Instead of returning to the hospital or my crime-scene house, I drove my SUV straight to a high-rise condominium complex in Biltmore, where Arthur lived in an apartment registered under a corporate LLC.
I didn't knock. I used my firm’s corporate security credentials to access the floor, walked down the carpeted hallway, and kicked the lock on Arthur’s door twice with the heel of my boot. The frame splintered, the door swung inward, and I stepped into the foyer.
Arthur Vance, sixty-one years old, wearing a faded silk robe and holding a half-empty glass of scotch, stared at me from his living room in absolute shock.
“Austin?” he gasped, setting the glass down with trembling hands. “What... what are you doing here? How did you get in?”
I closed the broken door behind me and walked toward him, my tall frame casting a heavy shadow across his small living room floor. “My house was raided tonight, Arthur. Irene is in the hospital with two broken ribs. My mother and sister are in jail. And a keylogger on Irene’s laptop was tracing back to your lawyer’s server.”
Arthur swallowed hard, stepping backward until his knees hit the edge of his leather sofa. “Austin... listen to me. I was trying to protect her!”
“Protect her?” I grabbed him by the collar of his robe, hoisting him forward until his toes barely touched the hardwood floor. “You spent ninety days spying on my wife while my family physically abused her in my own home! Explain yourself before I break your jaw!”
“It was Julian!” Arthur choked out, his hands clawing at my wrists. “Julian Mercer came to me four months ago! He knew I was broke, knew I owed money to hard people! He told me if I used my connection to Irene to get a spy software installed on her laptop, he would clear my debts and give me ten percent of whatever he pulled out of your offshore accounts!”
“And you agreed?” I spat, disgust burning in my throat. “You sold out your own daughter?”
“I didn't know they were going to hurt her!” Arthur wept, tears spilling down his wrinkled, alcohol-flushed cheeks. “I thought Julian just wanted his corporate documents back! But three weeks ago, Irene reached out to me! She found out about the spy software, Austin! She confronted me!”
I paused, my grip loosening slightly. “Irene knew?”
“Yes!” Arthur sobbed. “She found the keylogger! She realized Julian was planning something huge with your mother! She came to my apartment three weeks ago and threatened to hand me over to the FBI if I didn't help her turn the tables on them!”
My mind spun backward. Irene hadn't just been a passive victim cowering under my mother’s cruelty. She had discovered the conspiracy weeks ago, realized her own father was involved, and had been secretly working to gather evidence against Julian and my mother on her own—without telling me, because she was terrified I would believe she was part of the plot.
“She was trying to gather enough proof to present to your legal team,” Arthur whispered, collapsing onto the sofa as I released his collar. “She knew if she came to you without hard evidence, your mother would twist it and make it look like Irene was trying to alienate you from your family. She was trying to protect you, Austin! She stayed in that house with those monsters because she was trying to trap them red-handed!”
I stood in the center of Arthur’s living room, the cold morning light breaking through the blinds. The puzzle was finally complete.
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Irene wasn't stealing from me. She wasn't running away. She had endured weeks of emotional torture, threat of exposure regarding her fertility choices, and physical violence, all while carrying my child—because she was fighting a war to save my life and my estate from the vultures I called my family.
And I had let her fight it alone.
