Chapter 5
Arthur leaned in closer, his expression darkening. "What did you find on that phone, Rebecca?"
"I didn't get to see everything," she said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper so as not to disturb the sleeping infant in the bassinet beside her. "He caught me looking while he was in the shower. The phone was unlocked on the kitchen counter. There were emails from a development firm in Chicago, and bank statements showing wire transfers totaling over half a million dollars. Money that was supposed to fund our retirement and Leo’s trust."
"Embezzlement," Arthur stated flatly, the word hanging heavy in the small study. "Julian works for municipal zoning and urban renewal. If he’s taking developer money..."
"He’s selling city permits for upcoming commercial projects under the table," Rebecca finished, nodding slowly. "That’s why he was so frantic. If those documents get into the hands of the district attorney, Julian isn't just looking at a messy divorce. He’s looking at a federal penitentiary sentence."
Arthur reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the black smartphone. The cracked screen caught the amber light of the desk lamp, a web of destruction hiding digital dynamite. "And he thinks you have copies backed up to the cloud."
"I do," Rebecca admitted quietly. "Automatic sync. Every single photo, text, and financial statement downloaded to my tablet upstairs the moment he connected the phone to our home Wi-Fi last week."
Arthur stared at the broken device in his palm for a long moment, turning it over as if weighing the immense danger of what they now possessed. The quiet, predictable life he had built after retiring from civil engineering suddenly felt very fragile. He looked at his daughter, seeing not the little girl he had raised, but a resilient woman who had just stepped out of the fire.
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"We need to secure those files right now," Arthur said, standing up and reaching for his reading glasses. "Before Julian realizes the cloud sync is active. Once he figures out you have the leverage, he won't just try to intimidate us—he will try to bury us."
Upstairs, the floorboards creaked faintly as the old house settled into the night, but to Rebecca’s heightened senses, every sound felt like the approach of heavy footsteps in the hallway. They had crossed the threshold of no return, and the battle for their future was only just beginning.
