A man answered her. It was my business partner, Ryan Caldwell.
“He trusts you,” Ryan replied quietly. “He will not read the clauses carefully.”
My stomach tightened as Sophia pulled me toward the pantry beside the kitchen.
Through the narrow gap in the door, I saw them sitting close together at the dining table, papers spread neatly before them like a carefully staged trap.
Victoria leaned back and said, “After the transfer, we activate the debt trigger, and he loses controlling interest within months.”
Ryan hesitated before asking, “And if he resists?”
Victoria’s voice dropped slightly. “He has been exhausted lately. Stress does strange things to the body.”
A cold realization slid through me as memories aligned with horrifying clarity, including the dizziness, the nausea, and the metallic taste in my morning coffee that I had dismissed as fatigue.
Sophia leaned toward my ear and whispered, “I saw her add something to your cup two weeks ago, and I did not know how to tell you.”
For a moment I could not breathe, because betrayal is louder in silence than any shouted confession.
“I need you to leave now,” Sophia said firmly. “If they see you, they will destroy everything.”
I wanted to storm into the room and demand answers, yet survival required restraint rather than pride.
When Ryan stood up to pour himself a drink, Sophia deliberately dropped a metal tray in the hallway, and the crash drew both of them away from the documents in irritation.
“Clumsy,” Victoria snapped from the dining room.
In that brief distraction, Sophia pushed me through the service corridor toward the rear exit.
“Do not take your car,” she insisted. “It has company tracking.”
Outside, humid night air wrapped around us as we hurried toward her old gray sedan parked near the service road behind the property.
Leave a Comment