Chapter 3 - The Fracture
It started with an unannounced visit on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Sloan was at her downtown office, and I was working from her guest room laptop when a frantic pounding echoed against the front door. I looked through the peephole. Tamson stood in the hallway, her mascara running in dark streaks down her cheeks, her designer trench coat soaked through from the Chicago drizzle.
I opened the chain lock slightly. "What do you want, Tamson?"
"Mave, you have to help me," she blurted out, her voice trembling with panic. "They're trying to ruin me. Your husband—he’s telling his lawyers that everything was my idea, that I initiated the relationship, that I fabricated the hotel rumors to pressure him."
I stared at her, feeling a strange mixture of pity and cold satisfaction. "You chose to play in a game you didn't understand, Tamson. What did you expect?"
"I didn't know it would go this far!" she sobbed, pushing her wet hair out of her face. "His mother promised me... she said if we helped push you out, your husband would secure that executive position, and there would be a place for me in the corporate division. She said you were unstable, that you didn't fit into their social circle!"
"And you believed her?"
"She was so convincing!" Tamson cried, leaning against the doorframe. "She showed me text messages, she made it sound like you were already out of the picture. But now the firm's compliance office is investigating, and Vance Sterling has subpoenaed my personal laptop. I’m going to lose my career before it even starts."
I slowly unlatched the chain and opened the door fully, stepping back so she could see the absolute resolve in my eyes.
"You made your bed, Tamson. If you want to salvage anything of your future, take everything you have—every text, every email, every instruction his mother gave you—and hand it over to Vance. That is your only way out."
May you like
She stared at me, trembling, realizing in that exact moment that loyalty to monsters only yields destruction. She nodded slowly, turned on her heel, and ran down the stairs toward the elevators.
Less than an hour later, my phone buzzed. It was an encrypted file transfer from an unknown sender accompanied by a brief note: Everything.
