CHAPTER 22: DISCOVERING TYLER'S BETRAYAL

Emma found the bank statements by accident.

She was at Damien's apartment looking for her laptop charger when she knocked over a stack of mail on the kitchen counter. As she bent to pick it up, an envelope fell out. Her name was on it. Her old name from before she married Damien.

Inside were bank statements.

She didn't think anything of it at first. Just pulled them out to put them back. Then she saw the date on the first one. Three days after her wedding to Damien.

Withdrawal: $2,000,000

Emma's hands went numb.

She sat down at the kitchen table and kept reading. More withdrawals. Hundreds of thousands at a time. Sometimes daily. All clustered at the beginning. Right after the marriage. Right after Damien had transferred the ten million dollars.

By the end of the first month, $7,000,000 was gone.

She read through them three times, hoping each time that the numbers would change. That she'd misread them. That this wasn't real.

But it was real.

Seven million dollars. The money she'd earned. The money Damien had given her. The money she was supposed to use to rebuild her life and help her brother.

Seven million dollars spent in thirty days.

Emma set the statements down on the table and just stared at them. Her vision was blurry. She realized she was crying without remembering when she'd started.

She called Tyler.

"I need to see you," she said. Her voice sounded like someone else's.

"Em? What's wrong?" Tyler asked.

"Now," she said. "I need to see you right now."

Tyler's apartment was in a building she'd never seen before. When he opened the door, Emma barely recognized her own brother.

"Em? What's wrong?" Tyler asked.

Emma didn't answer. She just pushed past him and walked inside.

The apartment was nice. Really nice. The kind of place that cost more than she used to make in a year.

"Whose place is this?" Emma asked.

"Mine," Tyler said.

Emma turned to face him. "How?"

Tyler moved away from her.

"The money," Emma said. "You spent it. You spent all of it."

Tyler closed his eyes.

"Seven million dollars," Emma continued. "In thirty days. Seven million dollars of money that I earned. Money that I got by marrying a stranger. Money that I sacrificed everything for."

"Not everything," Tyler said quietly.

Emma felt something break inside her.

"What did you say?"

Tyler turned to face her. "You didn't sacrifice everything. You married a billionaire. You got ten million dollars. You got a life most people dream about."

"I got that for you," Emma said. Her voice was shaking. "I did that because you were dying, Tyler. Because you needed surgery. Because you were my brother and I would have done anything for you."

"I know," Tyler said.

"Do you?" Emma asked. "Do you actually know what I went through? Do you know that I was bullied? That I stopped eating? That I nearly died?"

Tyler flinched.

"And it was all for nothing," Emma continued. "Because you weren't even sick. Were you?"

Tyler didn't answer.

"Were you?" Emma asked again, louder this time.

"I was sick," Tyler said finally. "I had a condition. The doctors said I needed monitoring but I wasn't going to die."

Emma felt the floor tilt beneath her feet.

"So you lied to me," she said. "You looked me in the eye and you lied to me about dying."

"I needed help," Tyler said. "I needed money. And you were so focused on saving me, on working yourself to death, and then this guy showed up..."

"So you made me marry him," Emma interrupted. "You made me believe you were dying so I would marry him."

"I didn't make you do anything," Tyler said. "You chose to marry him."

"I chose to marry him to save your life," Emma said. Her voice was ice now. "Because I thought you were going to die without that surgery."

She moved to the window and looked out at the city.

"Where is it?" she asked. "The money. Where did it go?"

Tyler didn't respond.

Emma turned back to him. "Where did it go, Tyler?"

"Gambling," he said quietly. "Mostly gambling. Some of it on clothes and cars and... I don't know. I wasn't thinking straight."

Emma felt something inside her shut down.

"How much is left?" she asked.

"I don't know," Tyler said. "Maybe three million. Maybe two."

"You have an accountant," Emma said.

"Yes," Tyler admitted. "Someone to help me manage my losses."

Emma picked up her bag and walked toward the door.

"Wait," Tyler called after her. "Emma, wait. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Emma stopped at the door but didn't turn around.

"You didn't ask," she said. "You lied."

She left without another word.

In her car, Emma called Damien.

"I need you," she said when he answered. "I need you right now."

"Where are you?" Damien asked.

She gave him the address. While she waited for him to arrive, she sat in her car staring at her hands.

Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

Stop asking questions about what happened to your brother. Or you'll regret it.

Emma's blood went cold.

She showed Damien the message when he arrived ten minutes later.

His face went dark.

"We need to call the police," he said.

But Emma was already thinking about who would send this. Who would know that she'd just confronted Tyler. Who would be watching her closely enough to know where she was.

And then it hit her.

Claire.

Damien's jaw clenched as he read the message. He looked at Emma and something dangerous moved across his face. "We're calling the police right now," he said, already dialing. But Emma was staring at her phone, her mind racing through the possibilities. Who knew she was at Tyler's apartment? Who had been watching her that closely? The answer came to her like ice water. Claire had always known where she was. Claire had always been one step ahead. And now Claire was threatening her. Now everything was about to change.