Chapter Three: The Woman Who Counted
Celeste broke first.
Not completely.
But enough.
Her attorney claimed she had been manipulated by Nathan. According to her first official statement, she had believed every transaction was legal and every shell company had been approved by Ashford Global’s finance department.
Unfortunately for Celeste, I had recorded her laughing about the accounts three weeks earlier.
I had been standing behind the library door while she spoke to Nathan.
“The Antwerp route is clean,” she had said. “Once the money clears, we close the supplier and blame the discrepancy on customs.”
Nathan had asked whether I suspected anything.
Celeste replied, “Your wife suspects everything. That’s why she needs to disappear.”
The recording reached prosecutors before Celeste finished signing her statement.
Her next interview lasted nine hours.
My attorney, Rebecca Sloan, visited me in the hospital that afternoon.
Rebecca had worked with my father for nearly twenty years. She wore navy suits, spoke in exact sentences and frightened executives without raising her voice.
“She’s changing strategies,” Rebecca said.
“To what?”
“She claims she feared Nathan.”
I almost laughed.
“She corrected his count.”
“We have that recording.”
“She watched.”
“We have that too.”
Rebecca opened a folder.
“There is another issue.”
She placed several photographs on the table.
They showed Celeste entering a private bank in Geneva.
Another showed her meeting a man outside a shipping office in Rotterdam.
The final image showed her beside Nathan on a yacht registered to a company that officially did not exist.
“When were these taken?” I asked.
“Over the last eighteen months.”
“I only started investigating six months ago.”
“Your father started earlier.”
I looked toward him.
He stood near the window, saying nothing.
“You knew about Celeste?”
“I knew she was connected to financial networks we had been monitoring.”
“And you let her stay near me?”
“I had people watching.”
“That didn’t protect me last night.”
His expression tightened.
“No. It didn’t.”
For the first time, I heard regret in his voice.
Rebecca gathered the photographs.
“Celeste was not simply Nathan’s mistress. She appears to have approached him deliberately.”
“To gain access to Ashford Global?”
“That is our working theory.”
Nathan believed he had seduced a beautiful, ambitious consultant.
In reality, Celeste had selected him.
His vanity made him easy.
His hunger for expansion made him useful.
His cruelty made him controllable.
“What was she laundering money for?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
Rebecca hesitated.
“But several transfers lead back to a network associated with Blackridge Capital.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in international finance did.
Blackridge presented itself as a private investment group specializing in distressed assets.
My father’s companies had competed against it for years.
“They were using Nathan to get to Dad,” I said.
“That is possible.”
My father turned from the window.
“Which means this is no longer only about Nathan.”
I stared at the photographs.
My husband had believed he was building an empire.
May you like
Celeste had believed she was infiltrating one.
Neither of them understood that the real war had begun long before they entered Blackthorn Manor.
