“But wait,” I said, tapping the folder. “The ammunition doesn’t stop there. Because if the baby isn’t Brandon’s, then who does it belong to?”
Jenna’s eyes snapped back to me, filled with absolute terror. She knew. She knew exactly what else was in this folder.
“You see, Jenna,” I said, pulling out a fresh stack of high-resolution, color photographs. “Brandon isn’t a rich man. He likes people to think he is. He likes the expensive suits, the sports car, the lifestyle. But his firm has been failing for eighteen months. He’s drowning in debt. And do you know who has been bailing him out, just like I used to bail you out?”
I didn’t wait for her to answer. I held up the photographs for the front row to see.
They were photos of Jenna. But she wasn’t with Brandon. In these photos, taken over the last three months, she was sitting in the back of a black Mercedes with a much older man. A man whose face was very well known in this city. A man who happened to be Brandon’s primary investor—and the husband of my mother’s best friend.
“No! Stop it! Turn it off! Stop talking!” Jenna screamed, dropping the microphone completely. It hit the floor with a deafening screech that made everyone cover their ears. She lunged at me, trying to rip the photos out of my hand, but Hector smoothly stepped between us again, gently but firmly pushing her back.
“You thought you were playing me, Jenna,” I said, my voice cutting through her hysterics like a knife through butter. “You thought you and Brandon were going to announce this pregnancy, force me into a messy divorce, take half of my military pension and my inheritance, and drive off into the sunset. You thought Brandon was your golden ticket.”
I stepped around Hector and leaned in close to Jenna’s ear, so only she and Brandon could hear my next words.
“But Brandon doesn’t have any money left, Jenna. Because three days ago, I transferred every single joint asset we owned into a private trust under my name. I own the house. I own the cars. I own the bank accounts. In twenty-four hours, Brandon will receive a foreclosure notice on his office.”
Brandon’s head snapped up. His eyes were bloodshot, filled with a sudden, vicious rage. “You can’t do that!” he roared, losing his mind entirely. “That’s illegal! I’ll sue you for everything you have!”
“Try it,” I whispered. “I have ten years of your fraudulent tax write-offs right here in this folder, too. You sue me, and Hector delivers this to the IRS before your lawyer can even file the paperwork. You’ll be trading your Armani suits for an orange jumpsuit, Brandon.”
He fell weak at the knees. He literally had to catch himself on the DJ’s booth to keep from collapsing.
The entire ballroom was in a state of absolute shock. My sister was crying, her makeup running down her face in ugly black streaks, her red dress no longer looking like a symbol of victory, but a crime scene. My husband was a broken, ruined man, exposed as a fraud, a liar, and a sterile cuckold in front of everyone he ever wanted to impress.
I looked down at them from the stage. I felt a cold, clean sense of accomplishment. The mission was complete. The targets were neutralized.
I turned around, intending to walk off the stage, to leave them in the wreckage of the explosion they had caused. I was going to walk out the front doors, get into a cab, and never look back.
But as I stepped down from the platform, Hector reached out and caught my elbow.
His face, which had been a mask of professional indifference the entire night, was suddenly pale. His eyes weren’t looking at Brandon or Jenna. He was looking at his phone, which was buzzing violently in his palm.
“Captain,” Hector said, his voice dropping to a tense, urgent whisper that immediately set off every alarm bell in my military-trained brain. “We need to leave. Right now.”
“What is it, Hector?” I asked, my brow furrowing. “It’s over. I’m done here.”
“It’s not over,” Hector said, his hand tightening on my arm as he pulled me away from the crowd, toward the side exit. He held up his phone screen. It was a live security feed from the parking lot outside the venue.
Three blacked-out SUVs had just pulled up to the entrance. Men in tactical gear, carrying heavy automatic weapons, were stepping out of the vehicles, moving with absolute military precision toward the ballroom doors.
“Hector, who are they?” I demanded, my heart rate finally spiking. “Is that Brandon’s investor?”
“No,” Hector whispered, his eyes locked on the doors at the back of the room, which were suddenly being chained shut from the outside. “It’s not the investor. Captain… look at the logo on their vests. That’s your old black-ops unit. The one that was wiped out in Syria five years ago. The one you thought you were the only survivor of.”
Suddenly, the main lights in the ballroom slammed off, plunging three hundred screaming guests into pitch-black darkness.
And then, over the emergency PA system, a voice spoke. A voice I hadn’t heard in five years. A voice I had buried in a graveyard in Damascus.
“Hello, Captain,” the voice whispered through the dark. “Did you really think you could retire?”
