He Announced His Pregnant Mistress at Our Gala! He Didn’t Know I Had the FBI Waiting Outside…

Over the next long week

Over the next long week, Eleanor established a tense, secret routine. Each afternoon, while Victor was downtown at the firm, she would pull up the live feed from the hidden camera on her tablet, reviewing the recorded footage from the night before. For five days, Victor simply sat at his desk, drinking scotch, reviewing blueprints, and taking mundane business calls.

Then came Tuesday evening.

Victor entered his study at his usual time, but instead of simply pushing the heavy oak doors shut, he engaged the heavy brass lock. He rarely, if ever, locked himself in. Eleanor sat in the guest bedroom, her heart hammering against her ribs, watching the live feed on her glowing tablet. Victor pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. She couldn’t hear his voice through the thick wood, but the expression on his face made her blood run cold. It was undeniably intimate. His smile was soft, private, and deeply affectionate.

After hanging up, Victor didn’t return to his blueprints. Instead, he reached under the heavy lip of his mahogany desk. He used the small brass key Eleanor had found to unlock a concealed, false-bottom drawer that had appeared entirely empty during her initial search. He reached inside and withdrew a thick, leather-bound black ledger. He made a few quick, meticulous entries with a fountain pen, closed the book, returned it to the hidden compartment, and locked it away.

The next morning

The next morning, the second Victor’s car cleared the driveway for a site inspection, Eleanor was in his office.

She found the false bottom, inserted the brass key, and pulled out the black book. It was a private, handwritten financial ledger. As she flipped through the thick pages, the true scope of his betrayal unfolded in neat, precise columns. The book documented massive, steady transfers of company capital to offshore accounts that were completely absent from any of their joint tax returns or financial statements. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were being quietly funneled to numbered accounts in the Cayman Islands.

But it was the handwritten notes squeezed into the margins that truly shattered her.

Apartment deposit. Car. Medical. Olivia.

Eleanor’s hands shook, but her mind remained ice-cold. She pulled out her phone and meticulously photographed every single page of the ledger before placing the book back exactly as she had found it, locking the drawer, and rolling away, her world forever changed.

See more on the next page