Chapter 4 - The House of Cards
Back at the Fifth Avenue penthouse, the silence was finally broken.
Dominic Callahan stepped out of his private study at 3:15 a.m., rubbing his temples with a look of mild irritation. The scotch bottle on his mahogany desk was half-empty, and the financial spreadsheets for the Asian shipping lanes were scattered across the surface.
“Clare?” he called out, his voice echoing smoothly through the expansive foyer.
No answer.
He frowned, walking down the dim corridor toward the master suite. The door was pushed ajar. He stepped inside, flipping on the wall sconces. The bed was untouched. The bathroom was empty.
“Clare,” he said louder, a sharper edge creeping into his tone.
He walked down the hall to the unfinished nursery. The room was dark, quiet, and unnervingly cold. He flicked on the light. The laptop on the small rocking chair was sitting open, glowing with a screensaver. He strode over, tapping the trackpad.
The screen blinked awake. It was resting on the login page of the shared cloud storage account.
Dominic’s blood ran cold.
He didn't panic—men like Dominic Callahan didn't panic; they calculated damage. With trembling fingers, he typed his master administrator password into the cloud directory and pulled up the access logs for the BUILDING INSURANCE folder.
File downloaded: 1:12 a.m.
IP Address: Local network / Master Suite Wi-Fi.
His breath hitched in his throat. She had been in the cloud. She had seen the files. She had seen the medical report, the forged employee affidavits, the custody petition, and the email thread with Charles Vane.
“Damn it!” he roared, smashing his fist down onto the rocking chair armrest so hard the wood splintered.
He spun around, pulling his smartphone from his pocket, and speed-dialed Charles Vane’s private line.
It rang twice before a groggy, irritated voice answered. “Dominic? Do you know what time it is?”
“She knows, Charles,” Dominic snapped, his voice dropping into a lethal, controlled hiss. “She accessed the cloud. She saw everything.”
Silence stretched on the other end of the line for several seconds. When Vane spoke again, all sleepiness was gone.
“Did she take physical copies?”
“She accessed the master directory. She could have downloaded the whole database onto a portable drive.” Dominic paced across the nursery floor, his boots clicking rhythmically against the hardwood. “If she goes to the press or files an emergency injunction with a family court judge before we establish the narrative, Callahan Maritime’s public offering next month is dead in the water. The board will tear me apart.”
“Calm down,” Vane ordered sharply. “We move up the counter-offensive. We don't wait for her to come to us. We file the emergency petition for temporary restraining order and psychological evaluation now, based on the pre-signed affidavits from the household staff. We paint her as a paranoid, unstable fugitive who fled the home in the middle of the night endangering herself and the unborn child.”
“Where would she go?” Dominic muttered, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the empty room. “She has no family in the city. No close friends outside our circle. She’s seven months pregnant in the middle of a torrential downpour.”
“Check her credit cards. Check the toll passes,” Vane instructed. “And call private security. I want every transit hub, hospital, and high-end law firm in Manhattan monitored by dawn. If she’s talking to a lawyer, we need to know who it is before they file a single motion.”
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Dominic hung up without saying goodbye. He stared at his reflection in the dark window pane, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached.
“You think you can outsmart me, Clare?” he whispered to the glass. “You built this empire with me, but I own the foundation.”
