Making My Ex-Husband Crawl의 모든 챕터: 챕터 71 - 챕터 80

Dante's PovThe witness's name was Gordon Hale.I pulled everything we had on him in forty minutes. Former early-stage investor in Thorne Industries.In at the ground level when the company was still called Thorne Capital Group and had three employees and an office the size of a large cupboard. He had put in four hundred thousand at the start and taken out significantly more when Cassian bought him out five years later.He had stayed quiet since. No public profile. No board positions. A property management business in the southern suburbs that was small and clean and not connected to anything that touched Cassian's later operations."He is not a criminal," I said.Valerie was across the table from me. We were in her office, documents spread between us, the hearing suspended for the day."No," she said. "He is someone who made money from a man he knew was doing something wrong and looked the other way.""And now that man is naming people in open court," I said. "And Hale has decided th

Dante's PovWe got back to the apartment and she sat at the kitchen table and I put coffee on and sat across from her and waited."He has been in custody for weeks," she said."Yes," I said."He confessed in open court," she said. "To embezzlement. To the accident. On record voluntarily.""Yes," I said."And he files for a mistrial," she said. "On the basis of new evidence that nobody has seen yet and that nobody can assess until a hearing that is at minimum forty-eight hours away.""Yes," I said."The system allows that," she said."Yes," I said. "It does."She looked at the table. "I know it allows it. I know why it allows it. Due process exists because the alternative is worse. I know all of that." She paused. "I am still angry about it.""That is allowed," I said."I know it is allowed," she said. "I am naming it because if I do not name it I sit here looking like I am fine and I am not fine right now.""Tell me what not fine looks like tonight," I said.She looked up. "Tired," sh

Dante's Pov"The full truth will destroy everything you think you know," she said. "That is the line.""Yes," I said."What does that mean?" she said."It means one of two things," I said. "Either he has something real that genuinely changes the picture. Or he is using the language of something real to get you in a room one more time.""The second option is more likely," she said."Yes," I said. "Statistically. Given his history.""But the first option is possible," she said."Yes," I said. "It is possible."She put the note down on the table. The photograph Marcus had taken of it. The handwriting she had known for years still recognisable even in a photograph of a photograph."He said what I told you in the visitation room was not everything," she said. "He told me he changed the tires himself. He said he needed me to need him. He named Webb.""He named Webb as being present," I said. "But he also said someone helped him. The person who was present and the person who did the work mig

Dante's POVShe was quiet for the first five minutes of the drive.Not the processing quiet. The sitting-with-it quiet. The kind that meant she had taken in more than she could immediately sort and was letting it settle before she touched it.I drove and let her have it."He was not the beginning," she said finally."No," I said."He was the instrument," she said. "Someone pointed him at my father and he went.""That is what he says," I said."Do you believe it?" she said.I thought about it honestly. "I believe it is possible," I said. "Cassian is capable of planning things himself. He proved that for years. But the specific targeting of your father. The timing. The knowledge of what your father was building legally. That level of information about a private individual's legal activities." I paused."That takes access Cassian may not have had on his own.""Someone with access to the estate management structure," she said."Or access to your father's legal communications," I said. "Hi

Dante's POVThe file came through at seven in the evening.I had it on the laptop on the kitchen table. Valerie sat beside me and we read it together. Neither of us spoke for the first twelve minutes.Her father had been meticulous.Dates. Names. Transfer records going back twenty-two years. The documentation of money leaving the St Claire estate through management fees that were too large.Investment decisions that moved funds into entities that should not have had access to them, and a paper trail that was layered and careful and had been built specifically to be difficult to follow.But he had followed it."He was thorough," I said."I told you," she said. "He read the full manual.""This took years," I said. "This is not something you build in months. He was watching this for a long time before he started documenting.""He knew something was wrong," she said. "He just needed to be able to prove it."I scrolled further. The middle section was the case file itself. The sequence of t