Chapter 10 - DEREK KNEW EXACTLY WHO VINCENT WAS BEFORE HE BROKE MY ARMThe major twist came from Derek’s old phone backups.
Financial discovery revealed messages between Derek and Paul Castell.
Two years of them.
At first, business.
Loans.
Deals.
Then my name.
Paul wrote:
Moretti says you are not family to him. Stop using the connection as implied support.
Derek:
He’ll change his mind if Lena calls.
Paul:
Does she even speak to him?
Derek:
She will when she needs me to survive.
I stopped reading.
Rebecca asked whether I wanted a break.
“No.”
The next messages were six months old.
Derek:
She won’t contact him.
Paul:
Then stop telling people she will.
Derek:
She’s stubborn because her mother filled her head with garbage.
Then three months before the assault:
If Lena and I separate before the warehouse closes, everyone assumes Moretti access disappears.
Paul:
That access does not exist.
Derek:
Perception exists.
There.
The entire marriage had become financial optics.
Three clues changed at once.
Why Derek obsessed over keeping me in the penthouse even while saying he hated me.
Why he became furious whenever I mentioned divorce.
Why he alternated between mocking my Moretti connection and demanding I reconnect.
He needed to remain married to me long enough for other people to continue believing proximity to Vincent might matter.
Then came the message from the week before he broke my arm.
Paul:
Lender wants clarity. No more family-story nonsense. Either produce real capital or deal with default.
Derek:
I’ll handle Lena.
I stared at those three words.
Rebecca did too.
“What happened that night?” she asked.
I reconstructed it.
Derek was drinking.
I told him I had met with a divorce lawyer that afternoon.
Not filed.
Met.
He accused me of destroying everything.
Then said:
“You don’t get to leave until you fix what you caused.”
I asked what I caused.
He said:
“My name means nothing without you.”
At the time I thought he meant marriage.
He meant business.
He demanded I call Vincent.
I refused.
That detail had disappeared beneath the violence in my memory.
But now it returned.
Derek took my phone and found Vincent’s number still stored under an old contact my mother had entered years ago:
V.M. — Emergency Only
Derek stared at it.
“You had it the whole time?”
I grabbed for the phone.
He twisted my arm.
The bone broke.
Then I locked myself in the bathroom.
Then I called Vincent.
The very thing Derek wanted.
But not for him.
Against him.
That was why his first reaction when he broke through the door was:
Hang up.
He realized too late that forcing me toward Vincent had destroyed the only advantage he thought the relationship gave him.
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Derek had spent two years believing my family connection was something he could eventually control.
Instead, the first time I used it voluntarily was to escape him.
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