Chapter 4 - The Paper Trail of Deception
I stared at the leather portfolio resting between our coffee cups. My fingers hovered over it for a second before I flipped it open.
Inside were certified copies of legal filings, bank statements, and court documents. I scanned the top page, and the room seemed to tilt sideways.
Dissolution of Marriage. Petitioner: Spencer Hayes. Respondent: Chloe Evans-Hayes. Date of Filing: Fourteen months ago.
"This... this is impossible," I whispered, shaking my head violently. "Chloe never signed any divorce papers. She loves him. She would never—"
"She didn't sign them knowingly," Victoria interrupted smoothly, leaning back against the vinyl booth and crossing her legs. "Spencer is very good at what he does. He handles corporate restructuring and asset liquidation. When Chloe was heavily medicated during her second round of fertility treatments two years ago, he had her sign a stack of routine medical authorization forms and financial disclosures for a joint loan. Buried in that stack was a quitclaim deed and a petition for uncontested dissolution."
My stomach turned over. I remembered that week vividly—Chloe had been crying from the hormonal injections, exhausted, trusting Spencer implicitly with every single detail of their household administration.
"He filed it in a county three hours away," Victoria continued, her tone completely devoid of emotion, as if she were reading a weather report rather than detailing the systematic destruction of my daughter's life. "The judgment was entered default because Chloe never responded to summons she never actually received; Spencer had all mail redirected to a private P.O. box downtown."
"Why?" I choked out, the rage in my chest threatening to overflow. "Why go through all the trouble of faking a marriage while keeping her trapped in a house with him?"
"Because of the trust fund I mentioned yesterday," Victoria said, tapping a manicured nail against the table. "The patriarch’s will states that the primary beneficiary must be legally married and cohabitating with the mother of the heir at the time of the birth to trigger the disbursement. Spencer needed Chloe to carry the child, because surrogacy contracts have strict clauses regarding paternity and maternal rights that would have flagged his financial fraud. But he couldn't afford to actually be married to her when the trust liquidated, because then she would be entitled to half of the principal under state community property laws."
I looked at the documents, then up at Victoria, realization dawning with sickening clarity. "So he tricked her into thinking they were happily married, let her get pregnant with the baby he desperately needed to satisfy the trust requirements, and planned to divorce her the moment the funds cleared—leaving her with nothing."
"Precisely," Victoria said.
"And you?" I narrowed my eyes, studying the woman sitting across from me. "You're helping him orchestrate this massive fraud? What do you get out of it? A cut of the stolen money?"
Victoria smiled—a sharp, calculating expression that didn't reach her eyes. "Spencer promised me a fifty percent stake in the investment portfolio once the trust cleared. We’ve been engaged for over a year. We planned to use his family's money to launch our own boutique corporate firm in New York."
She paused, leaning forward across the table, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Until yesterday morning, when I realized something that Spencer is too arrogant to see."
"What?"
"Spencer doesn't want to share the money with me, either," Victoria said coldly. "Last night, while he was ranting about how your little stunt with the cake ruined his timeline, I checked our joint offshore holding accounts. He transferred my share of our retainer fees into a separate account registered under his mother’s maiden name. He was planning to cut me out the second the baby was born, too."
A cold thrill of vindication washed over me. Honor among thieves was a myth, and Spencer had finally overplayed his hand.
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"So why are you telling me this?" I asked. "Why betray him to me?"
"Because I don't like being played, Mrs. Evans," Victoria said, closing her leather portfolio with a sharp snap. "And more importantly? I want every single penny of that trust fund, and I want Spencer stripped of his bar license, his assets, and his freedom. If you help me execute a proper counter-strategy, we can destroy him completely. And I happen to have every single password to his encrypted financial servers right here in this folder."
