Chapter 5 - The Desperate Plea
The doorbell buzzed again, longer and more insistently this time.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
“Clara! I know you’re in there!” Jason’s voice echoed muffled through the solid wood door. “Open the door right now! What the hell is this email? Have you lost your absolute mind?!”
I took a slow, steady sip of my coffee, walked over to the front window, and parted the blinds just enough to look down at him. He looked pathetic. The high-and-mighty corporate golden boy was gone, replaced by a terrified man realizing his house of cards had just collapsed.
“Clara, please!” Jason shouted, slamming his palm against the door frame. “The Board already locked my corporate portal! Internal audit is downstairs in my office right now! They’re talking about federal wire fraud and embezzlement charges! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
I unlocked the deadbolt, pulled the door open just a few inches, and secured it with the heavy brass chain guard. I looked down at him with an expression of utter, freezing detachment.
“Yes, Jason,” I said evenly. “I know exactly what I’ve done. I did my job.”
Jason’s face twisted into an ugly mask of fury and disbelief. “Your job?! I’m your husband! We are married! You just handed your own husband over to federal investigators over a stupid corporate dispute? Because my sister spilled wine on your stupid dress?!”
“This has nothing to do with a dress, Jason,” I replied, my voice chillingly steady. “And it has nothing to do with Megan’s cruel little stunt last night—though that certainly helped pull the blinders off my eyes. This is about embezzlement, forgery, and white-collar crime. You forged my signature on federal compliance documents. You made me an unwitting accomplice to your felonies.”
Jason’s expression faltered, a flicker of panic cutting through his anger. He grabbed the edge of the door, as if he could physically wrench it open.
“I did it for us!” he hissed frantically, lowering his voice so the neighbors wouldn't hear. “To buy the lake house! To secure our future! Look, Clara, we can fix this. You can call the Board compliance head and tell them it was an internal software glitch. You can say your signature was cloned! We’ll get a high-priced lawyer, we’ll file for a quiet separation if you’re still mad about the party, but you cannot let them hand this over to the feds. I’ll go to prison, Clara! Federal prison!”
“Then I suggest you start packing a toothbrush,” I said quietly.
“Clara, wait!” Jason cried out, desperation finally cracking his voice. “Please! Think about our marriage! Think about everything we built!”
“We didn't build anything, Jason,” I said softly. “You built a criminal enterprise on top of a foundation of lies, and you expected me to smile while you let your family trample all over my dignity.”
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Before he could yell another word, I shut the door firmly in his face and engaged the deadbolt.
A moment later, I heard his frantic fists pounding against the wood, followed by a stream of profixes, and finally, the heavy crunch of gravel as he sprinted back to his car, tires screeching as he peeled out of the driveway.
