All Chapters of Making My Ex-Husband Crawl: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

80 Chapters

51| THE GLASS ROOM

Valerie's PovThe meeting room had glass walls on three sides.I had chosen it specifically. No corners. No shadows. Security visible through every panel. A table between us and nothing else. If Cassian was going to have a final conversation with me it was going to happen in full view of everyone who needed to see it.He was already in the room when I arrived that morning.He had been processed properly this time. Clean clothes, which meant someone had given him access to a shower and a change of kit before the meeting. His lawyer — what was left of his legal representation, a junior from the firm that had not yet dropped him entirely — was seated against the far wall with a notepad and the expression of a person who was somewhere they did not want to be.Cassian stood when I walked in.I did not tell him to sit. I walked to the table and sat down and looked at him until he sat too."Thank you for agreeing to this," he said."I did not agree to this for you," I said. "I agreed to it b

52| WHAT HE MEANT

Dante's PovI was in her office when she got back.I had watched the meeting on the security feed and I had sat with my hands flat on the table and said nothing for the duration of it. When she walked in she looked exactly the same as she had when she left, which told me nothing because she always looked the same from the outside."Sit down," I said."I am fine," she said."I know you are," I said. "Sit down anyway."She sat. She put her bag on the floor and looked at the desk for a moment and then looked at me."He gave us the Harrington property," she said."I heard," I said. "Marcus already called.""And the fourth account," she said."Also heard," I said."And the signed statement about the clinic records," she said."Heard that too," I said.She looked at me. "You watched the whole thing," she said."Every second," I said."What did you think?" she said."I think he is genuinely done," I said. "Not strategically done. Actually done. The things he gave up this morning had value to

53| ON RECORD

Valerie's PovThe press briefing room held twenty journalists and every seat was taken.Marcus had arranged it in four hours, which was fast even for him. The story about the photographs had run on two outlets by morning and a third had picked it up by noon. The narrative Cassian was pushing was simple. Old photographs of a woman in a wheelchair. A claim that her recovery was fabricated. A claim that her investors and partners had been deceived.It was not going to hold. The documents were clean. The medical records were clean. We had the signed statement from his own lawyer confirming the clinic enquiries found nothing. But noise did not need to be true to do damage and we were not going to let it sit overnight.I walked into the room with Dante on my left and Marcus on my right.I sat down. The room settled."I will make a statement and then take questions," I said. "The statement is brief."The room waited."Photographs of me in a wheelchair were circulated this morning by a third

54| AFTER THE BRIEFING

Dante's PovWe got back to the penthouse. She went straight to the kitchen and stood at the counter looking at nothing for a moment. I came in behind her and put the kettle on without being asked."The photograph," she said. "He had it for years.""Yes," I said."He kept it specifically," she said. "Not in a drawer somewhere. Specifically. He knew one day he might need it.""He kept everything as a weapon," I said. "You have said that before.""I know," she said. "I keep coming back to it because it tells me something about what those years actually were."She turned and leaned against the counter. "He was not just using me. He was building a contingency file against me. Every photograph. Every document. Every conversation he overheard or encouraged me to have. All of it filed away in case he ever needed it.""He never planned to let you go cleanly," I said."No," she said. "He planned that if I ever became inconvenient he would have what he needed to destroy me." She paused. "Even af

55| ROUTINES

Valerie's PovWe went through the message word by word the next morning.The press is only the beginning. I know your routines.Which meant either he was being deliberately vague to create maximum unease or he genuinely did not know more than that."Beginning of what?" Dante said."He did not say," I said. "Which is the point. He wants us to fill in the blank ourselves. Fear does more work when it is unspecified.""He has studied that," Dante said."He has practised it," I said. "On me. For five years. He was very good at the unnamed threat. The implication. The thing that was almost said but not quite."I looked at the message on the table between us. "He used to say things like, I would hate for people to see you the way I see you.”"And now he is doing it from a distance," Dante said."Because it is all he has left," I said. "He cannot be in the room. He cannot grab my arm in a corridor, he cannot show up at the auction. He is too visible now. So he sends a message.""The routines

56| CLOSING THE NET

Dante's PovThe security briefing ran forty minutes.I had the full team on the call. My personal protection lead, the building security manager at V. Intl, the external firm, and Carver on a separate line listening but not speaking. Four sets of eyes with different angles on the same problem."The PI Marcus identified," I said. "What do we know about his methods?""He operates on the edges," my lead said. "Registered company but no regulatory oversight. He takes jobs that licensed investigators turn down. Long-range surveillance. Identity tracing. Occasionally evidence planting, though nothing proven.""Evidence planting," I said."It has been alleged twice," he said. "Both times the cases were dropped before charges.""If he is working for Cassian, what is the most likely ask?" I said."Routine mapping," my lead said. "Identifying patterns in Ms. St. Claire's movements. Entry and exit points for key buildings. Vehicle identification. Times.""Which is consistent with the message he

57| THE MAN WHO SWITCHED

Valerie's PovHis name was Aldous Webb and he had been Cassian's operations director before Davies.He had left three years ago over a pay dispute and had held a low-level grudge ever since. Marcus had found him through a contact at the old company. He had agreed to meet, which told me the grudge was still active and looking for somewhere to go.We met in a private room at a hotel on the north side. Neutral ground with two of my security staff outside the door and Dante on a tablet propped against the wall, connected on video.Webb was a compact man in his fifties with careful eyes and the particular wariness of someone who was deciding how much to trust someone they had already decided to talk to."You reached out," I said. "Through Marcus. So start."He looked at the tablet. At Dante on the screen. "Is he recording this?" he said."Everything in this room is recorded," I said. "You agreed to that when Marcus confirmed the meeting."He nodded. He had expected it, he reached for his w

58| THE WEIGHT OF IT

Dante's PovShe was very still over dinner.The kind where she had put everything down and was sitting with it.I let the first twenty minutes go quietly. We ate and the city was outside and neither of us pushed the conversation anywhere it was not ready to go.Then she said, "He has a location.""Yes," I said."He has been thinking about this for a while," she said. "The conversations Webb described were not recent. He started asking those questions ten days ago. That is before the message he sent. Before the press photographs. Before the briefing.""He was planning this while he was still doing the other things," I said."The press leak was a distraction," she said. "Or a test. He wanted to see how we responded. Whether it would change our routines. Whether we would get scared and move somewhere less predictable.""We changed the routines," I said."And he already had Webb's contact speaking to Ferris by then," she said. "He was running two tracks. The visible one that we were watch

59| SETTING IT

Valerie's PovThe planning session ran three hours.Marcus, my security lead, Dante, and two people from the prosecutor's office who had been brought in the previous evening. We sat around the table in my office with maps of the building perimeter and the street layout and the car park below."The routine," the security lead said. "As it currently stands, Ms St. Claire leaves the building through the main entrance at approximately six-fifteen on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her car is brought around from the lower level. The journey from the door to the car is about forty metres.""He knows that," I said. "The men surveying the exits last week were watching that specific window.""Yes," he said. "Which means it is where he expects to find the opportunity.""So we give it to him," I said. "On our terms.""Thursday evening," Marcus said. "We keep the routine exactly as it is on the surface. Ms. St. Claire exits at six-fifteen. The car is visible. The street looks normal.""Except for what is

60| THE FORTY METRES

Dante's PovI was in position at five forty-five.The car was parked on the side street, facing the main entrance of the V. Intl building. Dark windows. Engine off. From where I sat I had a clear sightline across the forty metres of open pavement between the door and where her car would be brought around.My security lead was in my earpiece. "All positions confirmed," he said. "Building team, street team, car park team. Police are in position on the north side. Second unit on the east. The prosecutor's representative is in the command vehicle one block over.""Good," I said. "Nobody moves until I call it.""Understood," he said.I called Valerie.She picked up on the first ring. "I am on the fourth floor," she said. "Marcus is with me.""Everything looks normal on the street," I said. "Two of Ferris's vehicles are already here. One on the north side, one on the east. They arrived in the last twenty minutes.""He moved them early," she said."He is thorough when he has resources," I sa

...

3 4 5 6 7 8

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP