All Chapters of The Divorce That Made Me A Billionaire : Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

VICTORIAI made him wait for thirty more minutes.It wasn’t out of cruelty though. I just needed the time to decide who I was going to be when I walked off that elevator. Because the version of me that still had a child's feelings about Richard Hale and the version of me that ran a company could not both walk into that lobby at the same time. One of them had to wait upstairs.When I finally came down, he was standing near the far wall of the lobby, with the stillness of a man who had made a decision he understood could not be undone.He looked older and smaller, somehow. The last time I had seen my father, he had been in a room that made him look powerful. Now he was standing under lobby lighting at five in the morning and he just looked like an old man who hadn't slept.He was holding an envelope.I crossed the lobby and stopped in front of him. I didn't hug him. I didn't say anything for a moment."Victoria," he said."Dad." I didn’t say anything else.He held out the envelope. I t

VICTORIAI didn't sleep.I went through every single file on that drive with the kind of focus I usually saved for contract reviews and acquisitions. I pored over document after document, communication log after communication log, financial record after financial record. By the time the sun started coming up outside the window, I had a clear picture of what the drive actually contained, and what it didn't.Here was what it said: about eighteen months ago, Isabella had been approached by Senator Vance through someone in the fashion industry. A mutual contact. Someone she had worked with briefly on a charity event that Hale Couture had co-sponsored. That person had connected her with Vance's people, and Vance's people had made her an offer. A significant amount of money to monitor my activity, report on my business decisions, and flag any security gaps in my operations.The documents showed that Isabella had gone to that initial meeting. They showed she had responded to first contact. B

VICTORIAI called the meeting for seven in the morning.Clark was already with me. Elio joined by video from his office, his face on the laptop screen looking like he had also not slept. Serena came in with coffee she had picked up on the way, set it on the table without asking if anyone wanted any, and took her seat.And then there was Isabella.I had called her directly. I hadn't explained anything on the phone, just told her it was urgent and that I needed her there. She showed up in twelve minutes, which told me she had been awake already.I let everyone get settled. Then I pulled up the documents on the main screen—the drive contents, the communication logs, Isabella's name in the files, the fake IP address, the trace back to Lena, and the coordinates of the facility upstate.I didn't ease into it. I just laid it out, piece by piece, in order.For most of it, Isabella was quiet. A lot of emotions crossed her face while I talked. I saw confusion first, and it looked genuine. Then

VICTORIAThe facility was not what I expected.I don't know exactly what I had imagined in my head during the drive up. Something cold, maybe. Something with bad lighting and the smell of cleaning products and long corridors that went nowhere interesting. The kind of place designed to make you forget you were inside it.What we found instead was a private wellness residence set back from the road behind a row of old trees. The building itself was low, wide, and pale, and it looked like the kind of building that had clearly cost a lot of money to look that relaxed. The grounds were clean and organized. There were benches outside, a small walking path around, and a staff parking area half-hidden behind a hedge.It looked like somewhere rich people sent other rich people when they needed to disappear quietly.Clark drove past it without slowing down. I didn't look at the building directly as we passed. I was taking in everything else like the exits, the positions of the outdoor cameras,

VICTORIA I didn't step back.I looked at the connecting door the way I looked at every problem—straight at it, without flinching, taking in the details. It was a standard interior door made of thin wood. The kind between adjoining suites that swung open easily. There was no sound coming from the other side right now, which either meant no one was there, or someone was standing very still and waiting.I was betting on the second one though.Clark had already moved. He positioned himself between me and the connecting door without me having to ask him to, not making it a big show of it. He just shifted smoothly and was suddenly standing there.I put my hand on his arm. He looked at me."Don't make the first move," I said quietly. "They want a reaction. Whatever they came in here to do, they need us to react in a particular way for it to work."He understood immediately. He held his position but relaxed slightly, making himself look less like a wall and more like someone who had simply