Chapter 2 - The Audit
Within two hours, the grand ballroom of Bellmere House had been entirely cleared of guests, replaced instead by a phalanx of corporate attorneys, forensic accountants, and senior security operatives.
The wedding cake sat untouched in the corner, its intricate sugar-paste roses melting under the harsh studio lighting Gabriel had ordered brought in.
Dominic sat at the head of the mahogany bridal table, his laptop open, casting the cold glow of financial spreadsheets across his sharp features. Standing beside him was Marcus Vance, senior partner at Vance & Sterling Legal, and the man who had managed the Vescari family trust for over three decades.
“The press is already spinning the story,” Marcus said, adjusting his glasses nervously as he tapped his tablet screen. “Social media is having a field day. TMZ and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are calling it the ‘Cinderella Escape.’ Vivienne’s publicist released a carefully worded statement fifty minutes ago claiming the wedding was called off due to ‘irreconcilable personal differences discovered at the eleventh hour.’”
Dominic didn't look up from his screen. “Does she mention my legs?”
“Not explicitly,” Marcus hesitated. “She implies health and lifestyle incompatibilities.”
A cold, humorless chuckle escaped Dominic’s throat. “How very diplomatic of her. What about her personal accounts?”
Marcus tapped another icon, bringing up a complex web of banking transfers routed through offshore holding companies in the Cayman Islands. “That’s where things get interesting, Dom. You asked me to run a discrete forensic audit on Vivienne’s independent expenditures over the last fourteen months—ever since the accident.”
“And?”
“She wasn't just planning a wedding,” Marcus said, sliding a printed ledger across the mahogany table. “She was building an exit strategy. Over the past year, Vivienne systematically transferred approximately four point two million dollars from joint investment portfolios into accounts held exclusively under her maiden name. Furthermore, she secured a preliminary equity stake in Hale Global Logistics—her family’s old firm—by leveraging commercial real estate deeds assigned to her under your prenuptial agreement.”
Dominic slowly raised his eyes from the screen. The air in the room dropped ten degrees.
“She used my corporate assets to buy her way back into her family’s good graces,” Dominic stated, his voice dangerously low.
“More than that,” Marcus added, swallowing hard. “She had her legal team draft a post-nuptial waiver three weeks ago, slipped it among a stack of routine philanthropic paperwork regarding the Vescari Foundation, and had you sign it while you were heavily medicated following your shoulder physical therapy.”
Gabriel Moretti stepped out of the shadows near the tall conservatory windows, his face dark with suppressed fury. “She tricked you into signing away your controlling voting rights in the southern distribution hubs.”
Dominic stared down at his paralyzed legs, then back at the glowing screen. For months, he had blamed his own physical weakness for the subtle distance growing between them. He had excused her coldness, blamed her anxiety, and forgiven her lack of physical touch because he believed she was merely struggling to adjust to his new reality.
She wasn't struggling. She was calculating.
She had stayed by his side just long enough to ensure her name was legally entangled with his expanding empire, waiting for the precise moment when public humiliation would drive him into isolation, allowing her to walk away with a multi-million-dollar payout and zero accountability.
“She thinks I’m trapped in this chair,” Dominic murmured, his fingers tapping a slow, rhythmic tattoo against the armrest of his wheelchair. “She thinks helplessness is my permanent state.”
“What do you want to do, Dom?” Gabriel asked, stepping closer. “We can freeze her accounts within the hour. We can file an emergency injunction for corporate espionage and asset misappropriation before her private jet even touches down in London.”
Dominic shook his head slowly. A dangerous, predatory light flickered in his gray eyes—the same look he had worn a decade ago when hostile corporate raiders tried to dismantle his father’s legacy.
“No injunctions yet,” Dominic ordered smoothly. “Let her land. Let her check into her luxury suite in Mayfair. Let her sip champagne with her high-society friends and celebrate how brilliantly she executed her escape from the cripple.”
Marcus exchanged a nervous glance with Gabriel. “And if we wait?”
“If we rush, she plays the victim of a vindictive, disabled ex-fiancé,” Dominic said, wheeling himself slowly away from the table toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Atlanta skyline. “I don't want her playing the victim, Marcus. I want her completely, utterly destroyed on an open battlefield of her own choosing.”
He turned the chair around to face his inner circle, his presence commanding the room with effortless, terrifying authority.
“Initiate Phase One of the corporate restructuring,” Dominic commanded. “Lock down every subsidiary she touched. Cut off her credit lines. And notify the board of Hale Global Logistics that their primary funding partner is calling in every outstanding note effective immediately.”
Marcus blinked in shock. “Dom... calling those notes will bankrupt her family’s company within forty-eight hours.”
May you like
Dominic’s smile was razor-sharp.
“Then I suggest they start packing their boxes,” Dominic replied softly. “Because the wedding is over. And now, I’m setting the terms of the divorce before we even tied the knot.”
