Chapter 4 - The Financial Trap
By 10:00 AM, I was sitting behind a massive mahogany desk on the top floor of a towering glass skyscraper downtown.
This was not the cubicle where "Elara the Analyst" supposedly worked. This was the executive suite of Vance Holdings, the parent company of the financial firm where Gregory thought I was employed.
My encrypted phone buzzed. It was a message from the front desk of my subsidiary branch across town.
Subject Gregory Hayes has arrived. He is making a scene, demanding to speak to your manager.
I picked up the phone. “Send him a car. Tell him the head of the company wants to see him regarding his wife's employment.”
Thirty minutes later, the double doors of my executive suite swung open.
Gregory strode in, looking incredibly smug. He clearly thought he had won. He believed he was about to get me fired, humiliate me, and force me back to the condo on my knees.
He didn't look at the person in the high-backed leather chair facing the window.
“Listen,” Gregory started, addressing the back of my chair. “I’m here about Elara Vance. She is my wife, and she is mentally unstable. She assaulted me last night. I need her final paycheck directed to my account, and I strongly suggest you terminate her immediately before I sue this company for employing a violent—”
I slowly spun the chair around.
Gregory’s mouth snapped shut. The color drained from his face so fast he looked like a ghost.
“Hello, Gregory,” I said, steepling my fingers.
He blinked rapidly, looking around the massive, luxurious office. He looked at my designer suit, the expensive artwork on the walls, and then back to me.
“What... what are you doing in here?” he stammered. “Where is the boss?”
“You're looking at her,” I replied, my voice echoing coldly in the large room. “I don't work for this company, Gregory. I own it. I own this building. I own the firm where you thought I was a mid-level analyst.”
He took a step back, visibly shaking. “No. No, that's a lie. You take the subway. You complain about your manager.”
“It was a test,” I said, leaning forward. “A test to see if a man could love me without knowing my net worth. You failed the test spectacularly. But that's not the most interesting part of my morning.”
I slid a thick, black folder across my desk toward him.
“While you were busy crying to your mother, my private intelligence team did a little digging into your background. Go ahead. Open it.”
With trembling hands, Gregory stepped forward and flipped open the folder.
Inside were high-resolution photographs, bank statements, and printed text messages.
“You are currently three hundred thousand dollars in debt to an illegal gambling syndicate,” I narrated coldly as he stared at the papers in horror. “You have maxed out six credit cards. You are facing foreclosure on a property you didn't tell me about. And, most importantly, you have been funneling small amounts of cash to a woman named Sarah for the last two years.”
Gregory collapsed into one of the guest chairs, completely broken.
“You didn't marry me because you loved me,” I stated, the final puzzle piece falling into place. “You married me because you saw a vulnerable woman with a nice condo and good credit. You wanted a maid you could bully and a bank account you could drain to save your own pathetic life.”
He looked up, tears finally brimming in his eyes. The fake tears of a cornered rat.
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“Elara... please... they're going to kill me if I don't pay them.”
“That sounds like a personal problem,” I replied. “Now, sign the annulment papers my lawyers are drafting, or this folder goes to the police. And the IRS.”
