Chapter 2
The first missing transfer was small.
Two hundred dollars.
Then five hundred.
Then three thousand.
I kept scrolling.
My hands, the same hands Victoria mocked, started shaking over the keyboard.
Money had been leaving our joint account for eight months.
Not for groceries.
Not for Sabrina’s wedding.
Not for bills.
The transfers went to a company called R.L. Consulting.
I knew those initials before I clicked.
Raymond Lane.
Sabrina’s biological father.
The man who disappeared when she had diaper rash, unpaid rent, and no shoes.
The man who returned only after Logan’s wealthy family started asking about “pedigree.”
I opened the documents attached to the final transfer.
A loan application.
My name was listed as co-borrower.
My signature was at the bottom.
But I had never signed.
My workshop was listed as collateral.
My stomach dropped.
They had already started before Monday.
I called my attorney, Lydia Cross.
She answered sleepily.
“Glenn?”
“I need emergency filings.”
Her voice sharpened instantly.
“What happened?”
“My wife forged my signature. My stepdaughter’s wedding is tomorrow at a venue I own. They told me not to come.”
Silence.
Then Lydia said, “Send me everything.”
I sent bank records, photos of the ruined suit, the watch receipt, and audio from my hallway camera.
Victoria did not know I had installed it after three break-ins on our street.
She had called me paranoid.
Paranoid had just become evidence.
At 2:00 a.m., Lydia called back.
“Glenn, do not speak to them alone.”
“Why?”
“Because this is fraud. And the loan officer notarized your forged signature.”
My mouth went dry.
“Can we stop the wedding?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the torn suit on my worktable.
“No.”
Lydia paused.
“No?”
“I paid for the stage,” I said. “Let them walk onto it.”
By dawn, I had signed revocation notices, locked every account, and served the bank preservation orders.
At 7:15, my phone buzzed.
A message from Sabrina.
Please don’t show up. Don’t ruin my day.
I stared at it.
May you like
Then typed one sentence.
I won’t ruin anything that truth does not touch first.
