Chapter 13 - The Deal Behind the Divorce
Nora called an emergency meeting after reviewing Rachel's records.
The dates fit a timeline none of us liked.
Price's company had begun financing Derek's gym shortly before the surveillance of my home began.
Claire's affair had started within the same period.
The purchase option for the neighboring properties appeared a month later.
The altered employer payment instructions followed when I refused to surrender the house.
They hadn't improvised a scheme after a messy breakup.
They'd prepared pressure from several directions.
“But why the house?” I asked.
Nora pointed at a municipal planning map.
Our property was one of several lots along a proposed commercial access route.
An entity linked to Price had quietly purchased options on surrounding parcels.
Without mine, the project would be significantly harder and more expensive.
Taking my equity wasn't just punishment.
It was part of a larger property play.
“But the USB drive matters more,” Rourke said.
“Price could have offered you cash for the house.”
“He needed leverage,” Nora replied.
“Maybe the divorce was supposed to put him inside Cole's home long enough to find the drive.”
A call from Maya interrupted us.
The gym was closed.
Employees had been told it was undergoing renovations.
A truck had arrived before dawn, and contractors were removing computers and filing cabinets.
Nora immediately relayed the information to the investigators.
I asked if I could drive past.
“No,” she said.
“Cole, you have evidence because you've stayed disciplined.”
At three that afternoon, detectives informed us that records were being secured under lawful process.
They didn't share operational details.
Meanwhile, Claire requested a private meeting.
I refused to see her without attorneys present.
When she arrived, she looked at me with the exhausted eyes of someone who had spent days discovering how little control she really had.
“Derek said if I helped him, we'd be rich,” she admitted.
“Not just from your house.”
I waited.
“He said there was a larger settlement connected to an old overseas contract.”
“Did he tell you whose money?”
She nodded slowly.
“He said the government owed it.”
Rourke's face hardened.
“That's not how this works.”
Claire went on.
“Derek claimed Price had proof Cole was hiding evidence to force a payment.”
I shook my head.
“So he wanted to make me look like the criminal.”
She broke into tears.
“I believed him when he said you were dangerous.”
“And when you watched him load his gloves?”
She couldn't answer.
May you like
That silence ended something inside me more completely than the affair had.
