Chapter 3 - Unraveling the Web
The click of the handcuffs echoed like a gunshot in the sterile room. Vanessa didn't cry or beg as the officers hauled her out into the hallway. She simply turned her head, glared at me with pure, unadulterated venom, and whispered, "You think I did this alone, Mason? You have no idea how deep your company has already been breached."
Those words chilled me far more than her confession.
By 3:00 AM, the hospital had stabilized. Claire remained in a medically induced coma to allow her kidneys to process the remaining toxins, but Dr. Bennett assured me that because she’d ingested a partial dose, her brain function was intact. Down in the neonatal ICU, my three infants—Luke, Sophia, and Ethan—were sleeping peacefully in their incubators, tiny and pristine, unaware of the war taking place around them.
I sat in a private waiting office on the third floor with Detective Ray Carter, a veteran homicide investigator brought in due to the high-profile nature of the case.
"We searched Miss Vale’s vehicle in the hospital parking lot," Carter said, throwing a heavy manila folder onto the coffee table between us. "We found three different burner phones, a encrypted flash drive, and two forged passports under names we haven't verified yet."
"She was planning to flee," I said, rubbing my tired eyes. "The moment Claire died, Vanessa was going to disappear."
"It’s worse than that, Mr. Sloane," Carter replied, leaning forward. "We pulled the bank records associated with one of the burner phones. Over the last fourteen months, Vanessa Vale received over four million dollars in offshore wire transfers from a shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands—Vanguard Asset Holdings."
I sat up straight, my pulse spiking instantly. "Vanguard Asset Holdings? That’s the parent firm owned by Richard Vance."
Richard Vance was my fiercest corporate rival. For five years, Sloane Infrastructure and Vance Global had been locked in a bitter war for the multi-billion-dollar Midwest Rail Expansion project—the largest federal infrastructure contract of the decade. The final bidding deadline was in exactly four days.
"So Vanessa wasn't just obsessed with me," I realized aloud, the pieces falling into place with terrifying clarity. "She was a corporate mole. Vance paid her to destroy my personal life and create enough chaos to knock me out of the bidding process."
"Or," Carter corrected grimly, "Vance promised her a high-ranking position and millions of dollars if she broke up your family and gave him complete access to your proprietary bidding algorithms."
"She tried to murder the mother of my children for a corporate payout," I growled, my hands clenching into tight fists until my knuckles turned white. "Where is Vance now?"
"Vance is currently at his estate in Buckhead, preparing to host his annual charity gala tomorrow night," Carter said. "We don't have enough direct evidence tying Vance to the poisoning yet. Vanessa hasn't said a word to our interrogators since her arrest. Without her testimony linking Vance to the wire transfers, Vance’s lawyers will claim Vanguard Holdings is just a blind investment vehicle."
I stood up, adjusting my jacket, the cold fury inside me solidifying into absolute resolve.
"Then we don't wait for Vanessa to talk," I said coldly. "We make Vance dig his own grave."
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"How do you propose we do that, Mr. Sloane?" Carter asked.
"Vanessa was supposed to send a signal to Vance once Claire was dead," I replied, looking toward the window where the first golden rays of dawn were breaking over Atlanta. "Vance thinks everything is going according to plan. We're going to use Vanessa's phone to give him exactly what he’s waiting for."
