Chapter 8 - THE TRAITOR AT THE TABLE
We told nobody about the phone.
Not Nathan.
Not the board.
Not senior management.
Only my father, Margaret, and me.
We needed the traitor to believe we were blind.
The initials N.V. bothered me.
Voss.
Someone in the family?
An executive using initials?
A fake name?
Margaret traced the number.
Prepaid.
Cash purchase.
Security footage unavailable.
Professional.
That narrowed the field.
The traitor understood how investigations worked.
For two days, we fed different information to different executives.
To one director, we said we planned to refinance.
To another, we mentioned asset sales.
To a third, we suggested a private capital injection.
Then we waited.
Forty-eight hours later, Julian’s attorneys filed an emergency motion based on information only one person had received.
Private capital injection.
That information had been given to Aurelia’s chief financial officer.
Nicholas Vale.
N.V.
My father refused to believe it.
Nicholas had worked for him for nineteen years.
He attended my mother’s funeral.
He had taught me how to read a balance sheet.
He had toasted at my wedding.
But betrayal rarely comes from strangers.
Strangers don’t have enough access.
We invited Nicholas to dinner.
No lawyers visible.
No security.
No accusations.
He arrived carrying wine.
“Elena.”
He kissed my cheek.
“You look exhausted.”
“So do you.”
“Hell of a week.”
He smiled.
I wanted desperately to be wrong.
We ate.
Talked about lenders.
Insurance.
The investigation.
Nicholas behaved normally.
Then dessert arrived.
My father placed the burner phone on the table.
Nicholas stopped breathing.
That was all the confession we needed.
“Why?”
My father asked.
Nicholas stared at the phone.
“Alexander.”
“Why?”
Nineteen years of friendship collapsed inside one word.
Nicholas leaned back.
“Because you were going to replace me.”
My father frowned.
“What?”
“With Elena.”
I stared at him.
“You thought I wanted your job?”
“You were already doing it.”
His bitterness surprised me.
“You controlled development.”
“Not finance.”
“You questioned every acquisition.”
“That was my responsibility.”
“You made me irrelevant.”
I shook my head.
“No, Nicholas.”
“You became afraid of becoming irrelevant.”
His face hardened.
Julian had recognized that fear.
Fed it.
Promised Nicholas the CFO position in a newly consolidated company.
Permanent equity.
Control.
Status.
Everything insecurity makes people crave.
“How much did he pay you?”
Margaret asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then why?”
Nicholas laughed sadly.
“Because money isn’t the only currency.”
He looked at my father.
“Sometimes people want to matter.”
My father’s expression softened for half a second.
“You mattered to me.”
Nicholas looked away.
That was perhaps the saddest moment of the entire betrayal.
Julian had not created Nicholas’s resentment.
He had simply found it.
Nicholas surrendered his laptop.
His access was terminated.
Investigators were notified.
Before leaving, he stopped beside me.
“There’s something else.”
I waited.
“Vanessa wasn’t Julian’s idea.”
“What?”
“She approached him.”
“When?”
“Almost two years ago.”
“Why?”
Nicholas hesitated.
“She wasn’t after him.”
My stomach tightened.
“What was she after?”
Nicholas looked directly at me.
“Aurelia.”
Vanessa Cole wasn’t simply a mistress.
May you like
She had entered Julian’s life deliberately.
And according to Nicholas, she had been paid to do it.
