Chapter 1 - THE FOLDERThe sentence on the first page stared back at me.
“If Flynn Vance ever betrays my daughter, give her this folder.”
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
The black folder rested on the kitchen table beneath the yellow light of the pendant lamp. Clara was asleep upstairs. Flynn was still downstairs in his home office, probably calling Selina, probably explaining why his marriage was suddenly collapsing around him.
But none of that mattered anymore.
My father had known.
Not suspected.
Known.
I turned the page.
There was a handwritten note beneath a stack of legal documents.
Mabel,
If you are reading this, Flynn has finally shown you the man he really is.
I hope you never have to open this folder.
But if you do, don't confront him.
Don't tell him what you've found.
And above all, do not trust anyone connected to Vance Global.
My heartbeat quickened.
Vance Global.
Flynn's company.
One of the fastest-growing investment firms in Boston.
The company had made him rich.
The company had also been the reason I had sacrificed my career.
I had once been a senior financial consultant at Halbrook & Pierce. I worked eighty-hour weeks, traveled across the country, and was being groomed for partnership.
Then Clara was born.
Flynn told me I didn't need to keep working.
"Let me take care of you."
Those words had sounded romantic.
Now they sounded like a trap.
I opened the next document.
It was a bank statement.
My father's name was at the top.
Jonathan Hart.
The date was eleven years old.
The account balance nearly made me drop the paper.
$47,850,000.
I stared at it.
My father had never told me he had forty-seven million dollars.
He had always lived modestly.
A quiet house.
A simple car.
No private jets.
No mansion.
No ridiculous vacations.
When he died, I inherited what I thought was a small portfolio and a house in Connecticut.
At least, that was what Flynn had told me.
I turned the page.
Another account.
$12,400,000.
Then another.
$9,800,000.
My hands started shaking.
Why would my father hide this?
Why would he leave documents about Flynn?
And why had he written my name on the folder?
I kept digging.
The next page contained a photograph.
It showed my father standing beside three men.
One of them was unmistakable.
Flynn.
But the photograph was dated eleven years ago.
That was before I'd even met him.
I flipped it over.
There was another handwritten sentence.
“Flynn Vance was not introduced to Mabel by chance.”
My stomach dropped.
I read it again.
Not by chance.
I could hear footsteps upstairs.
I quickly gathered the papers and placed them back inside the folder.
Then I heard Clara crying.
I closed the drawer.
When I entered her bedroom, Flynn was already there.
He was standing beside our daughter's bed.
His face was unusually pale.
"You went through my office," he said.
I stopped.
"What?"
"My desk."
"I was nowhere near your office."
He stared at me.
Then he looked toward the hallway.
"I need to know what your father left you."
Every muscle in my body tightened.
"Why?"
His expression changed.
For the first time that night, Flynn looked afraid.
"Because he knew what was coming."
I said nothing.
Flynn stepped closer.
"Mabel, listen to me."
"No."
"You don't understand."
"I understand perfectly."
"No, you don't."
He lowered his voice.
"Your father wasn't protecting you from me."
I stared at him.
"Then what was he protecting me from?"
Flynn's jaw tightened.
Before he could answer, my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
DON'T TRUST FLYNN. HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO LIED TO YOU.
A second message arrived immediately.
YOUR FATHER DIDN'T DIE NATURALLY.
I looked at Flynn.
May you like
He was watching my phone.
And somehow, he already knew what the message said.
