Chapter 4

The conference room erupted.

I picked up the IOU on top.

The signature looked like mine, but the final stroke curved upward out of habit.

Cheryl signed finance documents the same way.

“You said I gamble. Where?”

Cheryl bit her lip.

“You wore a mask every time. I didn’t follow you in.”

“If I owe that much gambling debt, where are the debt collectors?”

Cheryl looked nervous, but Baron cut me off.

“Cheryl has no reason to risk her career by lying.”

“So I’m lying with my daughter’s life?”

I slammed the death certificate onto the table.

“Alva died the night before last of multiple organ failure. The two-hundred-thousand-dollar deposit went into the dead account of a shell company.”

Baron didn’t reach for it.

Cheryl covered her mouth.

“How could you forge a death certificate? She wasn’t even three. No matter how desperate you are for money, you can’t curse your own daughter.”

The shareholders’ looks toward me changed.

Baron raised his hand and tore the certificate in half.

He looked at me.

“I’ll have someone pick up Alva tomorrow morning. If I don’t see her, I’ll file to change custody.”

“She’s already been cremated.”

I had been holding the urn the entire time.

He had clearly seen it.

But he had already decided it was just another prop in my performance.

I crouched down and picked up the torn pieces of paper one by one.

Under the table, Cheryl’s heel pinned one corner in place.

She bent down and whispered, “The money is with me, sure. But how are you going to prove it?”

She hurriedly stuffed the forged documents back into her bag, but accidentally dragged out a torn corner of an original receipt.

The scrap fluttered down beside my foot.

I saw the broken account number on it.

It ended in 0719.

The same as the account belonging to the dead owner of the shell company.

After the meeting, Cheryl shoved all the files into her bag and left quickly.

Rex waited in the underground garage and filmed the entire process of her handing the documents to her assistant for destruction.

That night, Baron filed for emergency custody protection.

A family court staff member called to ask about the child’s current condition.

I submitted the death certificate, cremation certificate, and emergency records one by one.

The person on the other end stayed silent for a long time.

“Mr. Hale stated in his application that you faked an illness to obtain property and concealed the child.”

I looked at the urn on the table.

“Then ask him to come confirm it himself.”

The next day, Baron came to the hotel with his lawyer.

After he entered, his eyes stopped on the box beside the bed.

“Where’s Alva?”

“In front of you.”

“Nora, I don’t want to hear that again.”

He placed the visitation agreement on the table.

“Hand over the child. I’ll drop the claims, and I’ll give you another hundred thousand dollars a month, still reviewed by Cheryl.”

“Thirty-six million isn’t a small number. Cheryl has been questioned because she tried to balance your accounts for you. At the very least, you owe her an apology.”