Chapter 8 - Ghosts in the Penthouse
At six p.m.,
I returned to our Tribeca penthouse accompanied by Marcus Bell and two private security guards.
The spacious apartment was dark and silent,
the faint scent of Sloane's expensive perfume still lingering near the hallway leading to the master suite.
I bypassed the bedroom entirely,
heading straight into Adrian's private library near the back of the estate.
Behind the heavy mahogany bookshelf sat a wall-mounted biometric safe that Adrian believed only he could access.
Using the administrative master override codes I had quietly embedded into the home security system years ago,
the heavy steel door clicked open with a soft hiss.
Inside lay stacks of bearer bonds,
offshore bank ledgers,
and private trust documents bound in black leather.
Among the files was a corporate registry for a shell company based in the Cayman Islands.
I opened the ledger,
scanning the primary beneficiary list,
and felt my breath catch in my throat.
The primary beneficiary was not Adrian.
It was Sloane Bennett.
Adrian hadn't just been cheating on me with his chief of staff,
he was being systematically manipulated by her.
Sloane had been slowly siphoning millions out of the Vale Meridian holding accounts into her own offshore entity,
using Adrian's arrogance and obsession with her to cover her tracks.
A cold,
bitter laugh escaped my lips in the quiet library.
The foolish mafia prince had trusted a viper in his bed,
thinking he was the master chess player,
when in reality he was merely her mark.
I photographed every page of the Cayman registry,
May you like
transferred the digital files to my legal team,
and walked out of the penthouse without looking back.
