Chapter 3 - Alexander Asked for Time
Alexander arrived at Isabelle’s apartment just after one in the morning.
His tuxedo jacket was gone, his sleeves rolled up, his hair damp from the rain. For a second, standing in her doorway, he looked like the man she had trusted completely.
Then he read the file.
Page after page.
Invoice after invoice.
Elaine’s company name appeared again and again, tied to inflated charges and fake vendor payments. Margaret’s approvals sat neatly beneath them, clean and undeniable.
By the time Alexander reached the final page, his face had gone pale.
“My mother signed these,” he said.
“Yes.”
“She may not have known what Elaine was doing.”
Isabelle stared at him.
That sentence broke something small and important.
“Alexander,” she said carefully, “your mother approved payments to three shell vendors that share a mailing address with Elaine’s company.”
He rubbed his jaw. “I’m not saying you’re wrong.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying if we take this straight to the board, it destroys her.”
“It should.”
His eyes lifted.
The silence between them changed.
Isabelle hated that moment because she understood him too well. Alexander was not cruel. He was not corrupt. But he had been trained since childhood to believe the family name was a living thing, and that protecting it was sometimes the same as doing good.
It wasn’t.
Not anymore.
He stepped closer. “Give me forty-eight hours.”
“To do what?”
“To talk to her. To make her return the money. To fix it quietly.”
“Fraud doesn’t become less fraudulent because your family handles it quietly.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” Isabelle said. “Because if this were anyone else, you’d already be calling the board.”
Alexander looked down.
That was answer enough.
Still, she loved him.
That was the problem with betrayal. It almost always arrived wearing a face you had once trusted.
“Forty-eight hours,” Isabelle said.
Relief crossed his face.
“But if she tries to bury this,” Isabelle continued, “I send everything.”
Alexander nodded. “She won’t.”
But the next morning, Margaret called Isabelle before breakfast.
Her voice was calm.
Almost amused.
“Come to the mansion this afternoon,” Margaret said. “We need to discuss your little misunderstanding.”
Isabelle stood in her kitchen with the phone pressed to her ear and understood instantly.
Alexander had told her.
Maybe not everything.
Maybe only enough.
But enough was all Margaret ever needed.
Isabelle looked at the file on her counter.
Then she said, “I’ll be there.”
Before leaving, she put a second phone in her handbag.
Fully charged.
Recording enabled.
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Because Isabelle had learned something from auditing rich people.
The truth needed witnesses.
