Chapter 4 - The Husband I Didn’t Know
For eight years of marriage, Matthias and I shared almost everything.
A mortgage before the Dre estate became part of our lives.
A refrigerator full of takeout containers.
Sunday mornings.
Two miscarriages.
The tiny blue sweater I bought when this pregnancy finally made it past twenty weeks.
Apparently, we had never shared the truth.
Gabriel's convoy left the estate through a maintenance road while police vehicles finally approached from the north.
I sat in the rear seat between anger and terror.
Matthias sat opposite me.
“Talk.”
He looked toward Gabriel.
“Account 712 is an internal escrow account.”
“For what?”
“It was created during preliminary negotiations with Hensley.”
“How much?”
“Forty-eight million.”
I stared at him.
“You have forty-eight million dollars in an account I know nothing about?”
“It isn't mine.”
“You just said it belonged to you.”
“I control it.”
“Why?”
“Because my father asked me to.”
Of course.
Richard Dre.
Patriarch.
Chairman.
The man who treated family dinners like board meetings and apologies like hostile acquisitions.
Gabriel asked, “What was the stated purpose?”
“Contingency payments.”
“And the real purpose?”
Matthias looked out the window.
“I didn't ask.”
I almost couldn't believe him.
“You signed for forty-eight million dollars without asking where it was going?”
“My father has run Dre Holdings for thirty-seven years.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“I trusted him.”
The irony was so ugly I laughed.
“You trusted him.”
Matthias closed his eyes.
I looked away.
Gabriel's phone rang.
His team had located my mother.
She wasn't kidnapped.
Not exactly.
Someone had entered her Stamford home, disconnected her alarm, and left her phone on the kitchen counter.
My mother herself was missing.
That distinction did not comfort me.
“Where would she go voluntarily?” Gabriel asked.
“She wouldn't.”
“Think.”
I did.
Then remembered something.
Every December, Mom visited my father's grave alone.
Always before Christmas.
“She might have gone to the cemetery.”
Gabriel immediately redirected one vehicle.
Twenty-three minutes later, his operative called.
They found her.
Alive.
Sitting inside her car near my father's grave.
And furious.
When Gabriel put her on speaker, her first words were, “Serena, do not give them anything.”
I nearly cried.
“Mom, where have you been?”
“Your father warned me this might happen.”
Eleven years of grief rearranged itself inside me.
“You knew?”
“I knew enough.”
“Enough to let me believe Dad destroyed us financially?”
Her silence hurt.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“Everyone keeps saying that tonight.”
Matthias lowered his head.
My mother continued.
“Daniel discovered a network of hidden payments. Hensley was only part of it. Dre Holdings appeared in the records too.”
Matthias looked up.
“That's impossible.”
Mom heard him.
“Is Matthias with you?”
“Yes.”
“Then ask him why his father visited Daniel three days before he died.”
Matthias went pale.
I stopped breathing.
“Richard knew my father?”
“Very well.”
The SUV seemed suddenly too small.
Gabriel asked my mother where she was.
His team was taking her to a secure location.
Before disconnecting, she said one more thing.
“Serena, your father didn't leave the key with you.”
“Then why are they after me?”
“He left you the instructions for finding it.”
“Where?”
A long silence.
“Inside your wedding gift.”
My wedding gift.
I knew instantly.
Dad had died two years before I married Matthias, but my mother had given me a wooden music box on my wedding morning.
It had belonged to him.
Inside was a handwritten card.
For the days when you need to remember who you are.
The music box was at our house.
In Greenwich.
Gabriel redirected again.
Matthias leaned forward.
“We shouldn't go there.”
“Why?”
“Because if they know about the account, they'll know about the house.”
Gabriel nodded.
“They probably do.”
“So you're taking my pregnant wife into a trap?”
Gabriel looked at him.
“No. I'm taking a trained team to a location where the opposing side expects an emotionally compromised couple to arrive alone.”
Matthias sat back.
For once, he had no response.
Our house looked peaceful beneath the snow.
That frightened me.
Gabriel's team entered first.
No intruders.
No explosives.
No visible surveillance.
We followed.
I climbed the stairs to our bedroom.
The music box sat inside my closet.
I opened it.
The familiar melody began.
Nothing looked different.
Gabriel examined the hinges.
Matthias examined the base.
I removed the velvet jewelry tray.
Beneath it was wood.
Solid.
Then I remembered Dad teaching me to solve puzzle boxes when I was little.
“Wait.”
I pressed two opposite corners.
Click.
A hidden panel released.
Inside was a tiny brass key and a folded strip of paper.
No explanation.
Just an address.
A safe-deposit facility in Manhattan.
And four handwritten words.
TRUST THE NURSE, NOT DRE.
Matthias read them.
His face broke.
“Your father knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That you would marry me.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“Maybe it does.”
He sat on the edge of our bed.
“My father introduced us.”
I stared at him.
Eight years earlier, Richard Dre had funded a hospital wing where I worked.
Matthias attended the opening.
We met beside a malfunctioning coffee machine.
Or so I thought.
“You told me you were there because your father forced you to attend.”
“He did.”
Gabriel understood before I did.
“Richard put Matthias in Serena's path.”
My stomach turned.
“No.”
Matthias stood.
“I didn't know you. Whatever my father intended, I fell in love with you.”
“And Fiona?”
His face tightened.
I waited.
Finally, he said, “I have no excuse.”
At least that answer was true.
Gabriel's phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His expression became hard.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward us.
Security footage from the Dre estate.
Richard Dre was standing alone in his study twenty minutes before the blackout.
A man entered.
They shook hands.
Then Richard handed him a folder.
Gabriel enlarged one frame.
The folder bore a familiar number.
Matthias stared at his father.
I whispered, “He knew they were coming.”
Gabriel nodded.
Then another message arrived.
This one contained a photograph taken less than five minutes ago.
My mother being escorted from Gabriel's safe vehicle.
The person holding the door for her was Richard Dre.
May you like
And my mother was not resisting.
She was smiling.
