Chapter 11
Federal investigators arrived at Meridian the next morning.
Victor saw them from the sidewalk because he had come back to demand his office files.
He tried to leave.
Security stopped him.
The news cameras loved that part.
I did not.
Watching someone fall is not as satisfying as people imagine.
Especially when you once slept beside him.
Especially when some traitorous part of your heart remembers flowers in Logan Square and a man who listened before he learned he could talk over you.
Victor was arrested for financial fraud, wire fraud, document forgery, and obstruction.
Eleanor was served with a warrant at her Oak Brook house.
Kendra entered protective cooperation.
Preston Myles vanished for six hours, then appeared with a lawyer and a migraine.
The city moved quickly once Hartwell Group opened the doors.
Too quickly for Victor to rebuild the story.
Still, he tried.
From holding, he released a statement through counsel.
My wife deceived me about her identity and used her family to retaliate when I ended our marriage.
He did not mention the slap.
He did not mention Kendra.
He did not mention stolen money.
People online argued anyway.
Some hated me.
Some defended me.
Some said I deserved humiliation for lying.
Some said Victor deserved prison.
I read too much.
My father took my tablet.
“I am serious,” he said.
“I’m thirty-five.”
“And still my daughter.”
“That does not give you confiscation rights.”
“No. It gives me worrying rights.”
I almost smiled.
Then I cried.
Not pretty tears.
Exhausted ones.
My father sat beside me, stiff at first.
He had never been good with tears.
My mother had been the soft one.
But he stayed.
“I thought I could control the experiment,” I said.
“People are not contracts.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I wiped my face.
“I do now.”
He looked older suddenly.
“I let you go because I respected your mind. I regret not protecting your heart.”
“You couldn’t.”
“No,” he said quietly. “But I will regret it anyway.”
That was the closest Arthur Hartwell came to confession.
I leaned against his shoulder.
He froze for half a breath.
Then put one arm around me.
Awkward.
May you like
Careful.
A fortress learning how to be a home.
