Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
The woman standing beside my fiancé in that photograph was my Aunt Rebecca.
My father's younger sister.
The woman who had taught me to ride a bicycle, helped me through my first heartbreak, and held my hand at my grandmother's funeral.
And according to the bank records spread across my lap, she'd helped Adrian steal $950,000.
I stared at the photograph until my eyes burned.
"No," I whispered. "That can't be right."
My father didn't answer.
My mother leaned forward from the opposite seat.
"William, tell her what we know. Not what we're afraid of."
That frightened me almost as much as the photograph.
My parents rarely disagreed about anything important.
Now my mother was looking at my father as though she thought he might make a terrible mistake.
The photograph showed Aunt Rebecca standing beside Adrian outside a private medical office.
He wore a gray suit.
She wore the pearl necklace my grandmother had left her.
I recognized it immediately.
"Aunt Rebecca told me she was visiting friends in Dallas that weekend," I said.
My father nodded.
"That's what she told us."
I looked at the date printed beneath the photograph.
Four months earlier.
Four months before our wedding.
Four months during which she'd hugged me, asked about my dress, and offered to pay for our honeymoon.
My phone was still connected to Adrian.
"Nat? Are you there?"
His voice brought me back.
I looked at the photograph again.
Then I swallowed the anger rising in my throat.
"I'm here."
"Good. Listen, sweetheart. We need to handle something before the ceremony."
"What kind of something?"
"Just a few financial papers. Nothing complicated."
I almost laughed.
Three years of helping that man build his business, and he still spoke to me as though I couldn't understand a bank statement.
"Okay," I said. "I'll see you at the hotel."
"That's my girl."
He disconnected.
I stared at the silent phone.
For the first time, those four words made my skin crawl.
My father took the tablet from my trembling hands.
"Natalie, Rebecca has worked with Hawthorne Capital for twenty-six years. She's handled compliance reviews, financing agreements, and investor transactions."
"I know what Aunt Rebecca does, Dad."
"What you don't know is that her authorization appears on the release instructions for that money."
He pointed toward the account information.
The $950,000 had traveled through a short-term financing arrangement arranged in Nexo Digital's name.
The receiving company was called Crescent Bridge Medical Consulting.
Vanessa Cole was listed as its managing member.
Rebecca Morgan appeared as the person who had verified the supporting financial documents.
"Why would she do that?"
"That's what I intend to find out."
My mother shook her head.
"Rebecca has been trying to reach us since last night."
I turned toward her.
"What?"
"She called after midnight. She sounded frightened."
"And you didn't tell me?"
My mother looked devastated.
"We were trying to establish whether the threats were real before alarming you."
I glanced at my wedding dress, bunched around my knees.
"You should have told me."
"You're right," she whispered.
It was the first honest answer I'd heard all morning.
My father rubbed his forehead.
"Rebecca stopped answering her phone after that call. We sent someone to check her house. Nobody was there."
I looked out the window.
Austin traffic moved past us.
People carried coffee into offices.
A woman pushed a stroller across a sidewalk.
The world was continuing as though nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, the man I loved had tried to sell my freedom, my financial future, and possibly an organ from my body.
And now my aunt was involved.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"To the hotel," Dad answered. "But not into the ballroom."
He showed me a message from Marisol Vega, the attorney who handled our family's business affairs.
She had arranged a private meeting room with hotel management. A police detective was also on the way.
"We're not confronting three violent strangers by ourselves," Dad said firmly.
For once, I didn't argue.
Twenty minutes later, we entered the hotel through a side entrance.
The ballroom was already decorated.
White roses stood beside the doors.
A sign near the elevators announced:
Adrian Blake & Natalie Morgan — A Celebration of Love.
I stopped walking.
My mother followed my gaze.
"We can take that down."
"Not yet."
I looked at the sign again.
"I want to remember exactly what he tried to turn this day into."
Inside a small conference room, Marisol Vega was waiting with Detective Elena Ruiz from the Austin Police Department.
Marisol was in her fifties, with silver-streaked dark hair and a manner that could make an entire boardroom go quiet.
She didn't waste time expressing sympathy.
Instead, she looked me directly in the eye.
"Natalie, nobody can force you to accept a personal debt by frightening you into signing a paper. And nobody has any legal right to take an organ from you."
I nodded.
"But the men outside my apartment weren't worried about what was legal."
"No," Detective Ruiz said. "Which is why we're treating those threats seriously."
She explained that officers were examining the apartment, preserving the security footage, and identifying the men involved.
The hotel had increased security.
Nobody was being asked to take unnecessary risks for a dramatic confrontation.
I appreciated that.
I'd already spent three years confusing sacrifice with love.
I wasn't doing it again.
Marisol placed the financing agreement on the table.
"Your father controls the voting rights attached to the family trust's sixty-two-percent interest until the trust's scheduled transfer of authority. Adrian cannot simply take those shares."
"Then why does he need my signature?"
"His immediate goal appears to be making you personally responsible for the loan. But we haven't established everything he intends to do."
Before she could continue, the conference room door opened.
A hotel security manager stepped inside.
"There's a woman outside asking for Miss Morgan."
My father stood.
"Who?"
"She says she's your sister."
Aunt Rebecca entered before anyone could stop her.
She looked twenty years older than she had at our last family dinner.
Her gray-blond hair was loose around her face.
She wore the same pearl necklace from the photograph.
And she was carrying a small blue envelope.
"Natalie."
I stepped backward.
"Don't."
She froze.
"I know how this looks."
"Do you?"
My voice cracked.
"Because I have a photograph of you with the man who tried to have me kidnapped this morning."
Her face drained of color.
My father stepped between us.
"Rebecca, did you authorize those financial documents?"
She closed her eyes.
"Yes."
The room became painfully quiet.
My mother gripped the edge of the table.
I felt something inside me break.
"You knew what Adrian was doing?"
"No. Not at first."
"That's not an answer."
Rebecca opened the blue envelope.
Inside was a payment receipt.
Nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
She placed it on the table with shaking hands.
"I thought I was stopping something terrible."
"You helped him put almost a million dollars into Vanessa's company."
"I approved supporting records that made the transfer possible. I didn't understand where the money would end up until afterward."
Marisol moved the receipt closer.
"Who instructed you?"
Rebecca looked at my mother.
And suddenly I understood that there was another part of this story my parents hadn't told me.
My father saw it too.
"Rebecca," he said quietly, "what did you do?"
Tears filled my aunt's eyes.
"I was given forty-eight hours. They said if I didn't cooperate, they'd send everything to the medical board and the police."
"What would they send?" I demanded.
Rebecca took a folded piece of paper from the envelope.
It was a hospital disciplinary complaint.
My mother's name was printed across the top.
Margaret Morgan, RN.
I looked from my aunt to my mother.
Mom's face had gone completely white.
"What is this?"
Rebecca reached for my hand.
I pulled away.
She lowered her arm.
"Natalie, I didn't authorize that transfer because I wanted Adrian to become rich."
May you like
Her voice broke.
"I did it because I thought it was the only way to keep your mother out of prison."
