Chapter 3 - THE VIDEO
Amy opened her apartment door and froze.
“Oh my God.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You always say that when you’re not.”
Amy had known me since college.
She didn’t ask permission.
She grabbed her keys and drove me straight to urgent care.
The doctor documented swelling, a severe bruise, a loose tooth, and minor damage around my ear.
He asked who hit me.
“My father-in-law.”
His expression changed.
“Are you safe tonight?”
“Yes.”
That question stayed with me.
Safe tonight.
I had been married less than a day.
And a doctor was already asking if I had somewhere safe to sleep.
Amy called her cousin’s attorney, Christopher Hale.
By four that afternoon, I was sitting across from him with an ice pack against my face.
Christopher watched Ryan’s video.
Twice.
Then a third time.
“Clear assault,” he said.
“What happens now?”
“We document everything. We file. And we make sure nobody convinces you to go back.”
“They won’t.”
He looked at me carefully.
“You’d be surprised.”
Then he asked about money.
That conversation frightened me more than the assault.
I explained the forty-eight thousand dollars.
Twenty-eight thousand toward the wedding.
Twenty thousand toward what Dwight said was our apartment deposit.
Christopher leaned forward.
“Whose account?”
“Dwight’s.”
His jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“He said the realtor needed everything consolidated.”
“Did you see the contract?”
“No.”
“Did you see the apartment?”
“Once. During an open house.”
Christopher was silent.
“You need to check your records tonight.”
Ryan had sent the assault video to the Mercer family chat before deleting it.
Fortunately, I had downloaded it.
Christopher isolated the audio.
Near the end, just before I entered the elevator, Susan’s voice could be heard.
Faint.
Panicked.
“Dwight, you idiot. What if she freezes the account?”
Then Dwight whispered something.
Christopher amplified it.
“She can’t. Not until Monday.”
My stomach turned.
“Today is Saturday.”
Christopher looked at me.
“Exactly.”
I drove back to Amy’s apartment and opened my banking app.
There it was.
The transfer.
Twenty thousand dollars.
Sent three weeks earlier to an account Dwight controlled.
The description said:
HOME PURCHASE.
But when I searched the public property records…
There was no purchase.
No contract.
No apartment in our names.
Nothing.
At midnight, I opened Dwight’s old laptop.
He had packed it into one of my bags accidentally.
His password still worked.
There was a folder labeled X.
Inside was a video.
Recorded seven days before our wedding.
Dwight sat in a car.
Beside him was Ashley.
My maid of honor.
My best friend.
He kissed her.
I stopped breathing.
Ashley whispered, “When are you telling Elizabeth the apartment was never happening?”
Dwight smiled.
“After the wedding.”
“And if she asks about the money?”
“She won’t until it’s too late.”
My fingers went cold.
Ashley touched his face.
“You promised me we’d finally be together.”
“We will.”
“After the divorce?”
Dwight laughed softly.
“After we get what we need.”
Ashley frowned.
“What exactly do you need from her?”
Dwight reached toward the camera.
The video ended.
But another file sat underneath it.
A scanned document.
My name appeared at the top.
May you like
And underneath it was a number I had never seen before.
$412,000.
