Chapter 5: The Judas Kiss
Vanessa Cole was nothing if not a survivor. By the next morning, Grant had abandoned the Highland Park house, hiding out in a cheap motel near the airport, desperately trying to liquidate a hidden cryptocurrency wallet. Vanessa, realizing she had hitched her wagon to a burning horse, made a calculated decision.
She walked into the towering glass lobby of Vance Logistics downtown, wearing her most conservative dress, and demanded to speak to Arthur Vance. She didn't get my father. She got Miller, the terrifying head of security, who escorted her to a windowless conference room on the 40th floor.
I was sitting at the head of the table. The bruising on my face was turning a deep, angry purple, a physical receipt of the violence she had cheered for. Vanessa stopped dead in her tracks, her arrogant smirk completely gone. She nervously reached up, touching her earlobes. She was still wearing my mother’s pearl earrings.
"Take them off," I said, my voice echoing in the cold room.
Vanessa scrambled to unclip the pearls, placing them sliding across the polished mahogany table. She sat down, her hands shaking. "Claire, I didn't know he was going to hit you. I swear. He’s crazy. He’s out of money, he’s panicking. I want to help you."
My father stepped out of the shadows from the corner of the room, dropping a thick manila folder on the table. "You don't want to help my daughter, Ms. Cole. You want immunity. You want to avoid being indicted as a co-conspirator in federal wire fraud for accepting stolen corporate funds."
Vanessa burst into tears, nodding frantically. "I'll tell you everything. I have his laptop. I have the passwords to his offshore accounts. Just please, don't send me to jail."
May you like
I looked at the woman who had stood on my porch, wrapped in my robe, smiling as I bled in the rain. I felt no anger anymore. I only felt a cold, clinical pity. "Give my lawyers the laptop, Vanessa. And then, leave Texas. If I ever see your face in this state again, the immunity deal vanishes."
She scrambled out of the room like a terrified rat. We had the final nail for Grant’s coffin.
