Chapter 5 - SERENA'S VERSION
I did not touch the flash drive.
Mara did not touch it either.
She took out her phone and photographed it where it sat.
Then she looked at Serena.
"Did you make this copy?"
"Yes."
"From what device?"
"Lucas's laptop and my phone."
"Did you have permission to access his laptop?"
Serena hesitated.
"He gave me the password months ago."
"For what purpose?"
"I did work for him."
I almost laughed.
"Brand strategy?"
Her face tightened.
"Is that what he told you?"
"Yes."
"That's one of the names he used."
Mara pulled out a chair.
"Sit down."
We moved into the private dining room.
The same room where Beatrice had announced Lucas's affair less than twenty-four hours earlier.
It felt different now.
The tables had been reset.
The wine glasses were gone.
But I could still see Beatrice at the head of the table every time I looked at that chair.
Serena sat across from me.
Mara sat between us at the side.
Gavin closed the doors and returned to the floor.
"Start with how you met Lucas," Mara said.
Serena looked at me.
"Do you really want to hear this?"
"I don't know."
That was the truth.
"But I need to."
She nodded.
"I met him at a commercial real estate mixer fifteen months ago."
"I was doing contract marketing work."
"He told me he was separated."
My throat tightened.
"We weren't."
"I know that now."
"When did you learn?"
"Four months in."
I stared at her.
"And you stayed."
She looked down.
"Yes."
I felt something sharp rise in me.
Mara watched my face but did not interrupt.
"Why?"
Serena took a breath.
"Because by then he had helped me pay off medical debt from my father's illness."
"Because he had put me on monthly consulting retainers."
"Because he said he was leaving you."
"Because I wanted to believe a story that made me less ashamed of what I was doing."
At least she did not ask me to forgive her.
"The condo?" I asked.
"He leased it."
"With my restaurant's money."
Her eyes closed briefly.
"I didn't know that at first."
"When did you know?"
"Three weeks ago."
"What happened three weeks ago?"
She looked at the flash drive.
"He asked me to sign documents for a company called Westline Guest Services."
I felt Elena's spreadsheet flash through my mind.
"Why?"
"He said he needed a woman-owned vendor for a hospitality project."
"He wanted the company in my name."
"Did you sign?"
"One form."
My anger sharpened.
"Then I read the second packet."
"It included statements showing payments from Lumina."
She looked at me.
"A lot of payments."
"I asked him why your restaurant was paying a company that didn't exist yet."
"What did he say?"
"He said it was temporary accounting."
"I told him that didn't make sense."
"Then he got angry."
I knew that anger.
"How angry?"
"He threw the papers across the room."
"He accused me of spying on him."
"Then he left."
She rubbed her palms together.
"He forgot his laptop."
Mara leaned forward.
"And you accessed it."
"Yes."
"Using the password he had given you."
"Yes."
"What did you find?"
Serena's eyes moved to me.
"A folder called L Project."
I felt my stomach drop.
"L for Lumina?"
"I think so."
"Inside were spreadsheets tracking transfers out of your business."
"There were screenshots of your bank balances."
"Photos of signed forms."
"Scans of your signature."
"And a document titled Exit Pressure Timeline."
The phrase made no sense at first.
Then it did.
"Exit pressure?"
"It listed steps."
"What steps?"
Serena swallowed.
"Reduce cash reserves."
"Increase vendor pressure."
"Create marital instability."
"Challenge management capacity."
"Force sale or transfer."
My skin went cold.
Mara's pen stopped moving.
"Transfer to whom?"
"A new hospitality company."
"Which one?"
"Mercer Coastal Group."
I shook my head.
"I've never heard of it."
"It was not formed yet."
"There was a draft ownership chart."
"Lucas at fifty-one percent."
"Beatrice at nineteen percent."
"Private investors for the rest."
I could not speak.
Mara asked the next question.
"What role did Ms. Reyes have on that chart?"
Serena's voice was barely above a whisper.
"None."
I stared at the table.
The plan was not to steal forever.
The theft had a purpose.
Drain the restaurant.
Make me desperate.
Make me look unstable.
Then make me sell.
"Why would I sell to Lucas?" I asked.
Serena looked miserable.
"Because he believed you would choose the marriage over the restaurant if he forced you to choose."
I laughed.
It came out broken.
"He thought I would give him Lumina to save our marriage?"
"At first."
"And later?"
"Later he thought he could make the business look financially distressed."
"Then offer to bring in capital through Mercer Coastal."
"In exchange for control."
I remembered every conversation from the past year in a new light.
Lucas telling me expansion was too risky.
Lucas telling me cash flow looked worse than I thought.
Lucas suggesting we hire an outside management company.
Lucas introducing me to a man named Brent who had casually mentioned investing in restaurants.
Lucas asking whether I would ever consider selling if I became too tired.
None of them had been random.
They were pieces of a script.
"And Beatrice knew?"
Serena looked at the flash drive again.
"Yes."
The word hurt almost as much as Lucas's betrayal.
Not because I loved Beatrice.
I had stopped expecting love from her years ago.
But deliberate cruelty is different from selfishness.
For years, I had thought she took advantage because she was entitled.
Now I wondered whether some of her behavior had been designed to exhaust me.
"The recording," I said.
"When was it made?"
"Six weeks ago."
"Where?"
"The condo."
"Beatrice came over."
My stomach turned.
"She visited you?"
Serena nodded.
"She knew who I was."
Of course she did.
Beatrice had not learned about the affair recently.
She had socialized with it.
"What did they say?"
Serena looked at Mara.
"Can I just let you listen?"
Mara nodded.
"We should make a forensic copy first."
"I have a second copy," Serena said.
"Where?"
"With a friend."
Mara gave the first approving nod Serena had received all morning.
"Good."
We moved into my office.
Samir created an image of the flash drive without altering the original data.
Then Mara opened the audio file.
The first voice was Beatrice's.
Clear.
Close.
Annoyed.
"She will never sell that restaurant willingly."
Then Lucas.
"She won't have a choice if the numbers get bad enough."
My fingers dug into the edge of my chair.
Beatrice again.
"You should have married someone less stubborn."
Lucas laughed.
"I married exactly who I needed."
I stopped breathing.
There was a clink of glass on the recording.
Then Serena's voice from farther away.
"What does that mean?"
Lucas answered casually.
"It means Camilla works harder when she's scared."
I stared at the laptop.
The room around me disappeared.
Beatrice laughed.
"That's true."
"She'll work herself into the ground before she lets Lumina fail."
Lucas said, "And when she's exhausted, she'll sign."
The recording continued.
Beatrice complained about how long the plan was taking.
Lucas told her the cash drain needed to look natural.
He mentioned vendor pressure.
He mentioned keeping me isolated.
Then Beatrice said something that made Mara sit upright.
"What about the big lunch?"
Lucas answered.
"Do it."
My entire body went still.
Beatrice laughed.
"Thirty-eight women and reserve wine?"
"If she'll tolerate that, she'll tolerate anything."
"And if she throws me out?"
"Even better."
Lucas's voice became colder.
"Then you go public."
"You cry."
"You say she humiliated you."
"You say she's unstable."
"We build the story before she knows there's a fight."
Mara paused the recording.
No one spoke.
I could hear the refrigerator compressor kick on in the kitchen beyond the wall.
The lunch had not been an impulsive act of entitlement.
It had been a test.
A trap.
If I absorbed the bill, they learned I could still be pushed.
If I refused, Beatrice became the victim.
Either way, they planned to use my reaction.
My hands began to shake.
Not from fear.
From fury.
"Play the rest."
Mara looked at me.
"Are you sure?"
"Play it."
She pressed the space bar.
Beatrice's voice returned.
"And the girl?"
There was a pause.
Lucas said, "Serena thinks we're building something together."
Serena beside me closed her eyes.
On the recording, Beatrice laughed.
"Poor thing."
"What happens to her when this is done?"
Lucas answered without hesitation.
"She gets paid and disappears."
Serena's face crumpled.
For the first time, I saw that Lucas had not only lied to me.
He had built different lies for every woman around him.
Beatrice believed she was his partner.
Serena believed she was his future.
I believed he was my husband.
And Lucas believed all of us were resources.
The audio continued for another four minutes.
Then came the sentence that changed the scale of everything.
Beatrice said, "What if Camilla finds the transfers?"
Lucas replied, "Then we make Gavin take the fall."
I turned slowly toward the office door.
Gavin was standing in the hallway beyond the glass.
He could not hear the recording.
But he saw our faces.
And he knew something had just happened.
Mara paused the file again.
"We need to preserve this immediately."
Serena nodded.
I did not move.
"They were going to frame Gavin."
My voice sounded distant to me.
"It appears so."
I looked at the audit logs.
Gavin's username.
Gavin's manager station.
The fake authorization form.
The pieces had been placed deliberately.
Not just to steal from me.
To give me someone else to blame when I discovered it.
I opened the office door.
"Gavin."
He came in.
"What?"
I looked at the man who had spent six years helping me build Lumina.
"Sit down."
His face paled.
"Why?"
"Because I owe you an apology."
Before I could explain, the restaurant phone rang.
Then the hostess appeared at the office door.
"Camilla?"
"What is it?"
"There's a process server here."
Mara stood.
"For whom?"
The hostess looked at me.
"For Camilla."
The papers were handed to me two minutes later.
Lucas had filed for divorce.
That was not the surprise.
The surprise was the emergency motion attached to it.
He was asking a judge to temporarily remove me from control of Lumina.
His declaration claimed I had become emotionally unstable, financially reckless, and dangerous to the business.
At the bottom of the page was a list of witnesses he intended to rely on.
The first name was Beatrice Mercer.
The second was Serena Vale.
Serena stared at her own name.
"I never agreed to this."
Mara looked at her.
"Did you sign anything?"
Serena's face went white.
"Three weeks ago."
"What did you sign?"
"Lucas said it was a vendor affidavit."
Mara flipped through the filing.
Then she stopped.
She held up a notarized declaration.
At the bottom was Serena's signature.
Above it were two paragraphs accusing me of misusing company money and threatening employees.
Serena began to shake.
"I never read that."
Mara's eyes narrowed.
"Then Lucas didn't just steal from Camilla."
She looked at the signature.
May you like
"He may have built his court case with fraud too."
