Chapter 4 - His Mother’s Secret
Marcus refused to believe it.
“My mother?”
Imani had agreed to meet him in a conference room at her attorney’s office, not at their home.
Two lawyers sat outside.
Naomi remained nearby.
Marcus looked exhausted.
“You’re saying my mother stole your files?”
“I’m saying evidence suggests she helped someone access them.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because she doesn’t even know how to reset her Wi-Fi.”
Despite everything, Imani nearly smiled.
“That doesn’t make her innocent.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“Then ask her.”
“I intend to.”
Gloria arrived twenty minutes later, furious at being summoned.
Her confidence lasted until Naomi placed the photograph on the table.
Gloria stared at it.
“That could be anyone.”
“It’s you,” Marcus said.
His mother looked at him.
“Whose side are you on?”
Marcus recoiled.
Imani noticed.
It was perhaps the first time he understood that Gloria viewed loyalty as obedience.
Naomi placed another image down.
Gloria entering a café.
Another showed her meeting Brielle.
Marcus slowly turned.
“You knew Brielle?”
Gloria’s silence answered.
“How long?”
“Marcus—”
“How long?”
“Before you did.”
The room went still.
Gloria sat back.
“I introduced her to your company’s charity committee.”
Marcus looked sick.
“You pushed her toward me?”
“I introduced you to a woman appropriate for where your life was going.”
Imani said nothing.
Gloria looked at her.
“You were holding him back.”
“By doing what?”
“By being nothing.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“Mom.”
But Gloria had waited years to say this.
“You never attended the right events. You never made connections. You never helped his career.”
Imani’s expression remained calm.
“And yet his firm received introductions to three major clients after our wedding.”
Gloria blinked.
“Coincidence.”
“Was it?”
Marcus looked up.
Imani continued.
“Your first apartment after business school. Who owned the building?”
Marcus frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“Carter Residential.”
His face changed.
“The scholarship that paid your final tuition balance?”
He stared at her.
“The Carter Foundation.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Imani’s voice never rose.
“The first investor Charles Dane met when he was trying to save Halcyon during the recession?”
Marcus whispered, “Carter Sovereign.”
Gloria’s mouth opened.
Imani looked at Marcus.
“I never built your career. You earned your work. But whenever life put a locked door in front of you, I quietly made sure someone left a key nearby.”
Marcus stood and walked toward the window.
“You should have told me.”
“Would it have changed how you treated me?”
He could not answer.
Gloria recovered first.
“So what? You’re rich?”
Imani looked at her.
Gloria laughed.
“Fine. How rich?”
Marcus turned.
“Mom, stop.”
“No. She wants us impressed.”
Imani folded her hands.
“I don’t.”
Gloria looked toward Naomi.
“Then why all this theater?”
Naomi answered.
“Because Mrs. Carter controls Dominion National.”
Gloria’s smile disappeared.
“And twenty-seven other financial institutions through holding companies,” Naomi added.
Marcus stared at Imani.
Imani did not enjoy the moment.
She had imagined telling him once.
Years ago.
Maybe on an anniversary.
Maybe when they had children.
Not like this.
Never like this.
Gloria’s face became strangely pale.
Then she whispered, “Isaiah Carter.”
Imani noticed immediately.
“You knew my father?”
Gloria stood too quickly.
“No.”
“You said his name.”
“Everyone knows that name.”
“No, they don’t.”
Isaiah had avoided publicity even more carefully than his daughter.
Imani rose.
“How did you know him?”
Gloria grabbed her purse.
“This conversation is finished.”
Naomi blocked the door.
“No, it isn’t.”
Marcus stared at his mother.
“What did you do?”
Gloria’s composure cracked.
“Everything I did was for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You think Brielle was after you?”
Gloria laughed bitterly.
“She wasn’t.”
Marcus froze.
“Then who?”
Gloria looked at Imani.
“You.”
The answer landed heavily.
Brielle had never entered Marcus’s life because she wanted Marcus.
He had simply been the easiest doorway.
Gloria finally sat again.
Twenty-eight years earlier, she had worked as a junior administrator for one of Isaiah Carter’s early companies.
She discovered confidential documents suggesting Isaiah was preparing a massive acquisition.
Gloria sold the information.
The buyer made millions.
Isaiah discovered the leak but never prosecuted her publicly.
He simply fired her.
Gloria never forgave him.
“You betrayed him,” Imani said.
“He destroyed my career.”
“You stole from him.”
“He had everything.”
The bitterness in Gloria’s voice was almost childish.
Years later, when Marcus brought Imani home, Gloria recognized the surname.
She investigated.
Eventually she realized who Imani was.
Marcus stared at her.
“You knew?”
“Not everything.”
“But you knew she had money.”
Gloria nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought eventually she would put you inside the empire.”
Marcus laughed once.
It was a broken sound.
“So all these years…”
“I was waiting.”
“For what?”
“For her to make you important.”
Imani looked at Gloria.
“And when I didn’t?”
“I decided you were selfish.”
Brielle had approached Gloria months earlier claiming she could help expose Imani’s hidden assets.
In return, Gloria wanted Marcus positioned to benefit from a divorce.
“She told me if Marcus could establish marital access to the assets—”
Imani interrupted.
“That was never possible.”
Gloria looked confused.
“My inheritance and corporate ownership are protected separately.”
Marcus turned toward his mother.
“You destroyed my marriage for something I could never get?”
“I was trying to protect your future.”
“No.”
Marcus’s voice cracked.
“You were trying to steal hers.”
His phone rang.
Charles Dane.
Marcus answered.
He listened for twenty seconds.
Then lowered the phone.
“What happened?” Imani asked.
Marcus looked at her.
“Brielle disappeared.”
Naomi’s phone rang almost simultaneously.
She answered.
Then her eyes sharpened.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“The forged authorization wasn’t the only document Brielle uploaded.”
Naomi turned toward Imani.
“She copied the security credentials for Dominion’s emergency reserve system.”
Imani went still.
“How much exposure?”
Naomi swallowed.
May you like
“Potentially eighty-four billion dollars.”
And somewhere in Manhattan, Brielle Vaughn had just vanished.
