Chapter 3 - The Wife Who Knew Her Name
By sunrise, Silas had turned the suite into a command center.
Phones.
Laptops.
Security feeds.
Three trusted Carbone men.
Mave stood beside the coffee machine watching everyone.
Silas approached.
“You should sleep.”
“You should stop telling women what they should do.”
He changed direction immediately.
“Coffee?”
“That was better.”
Vivien entered carrying the divorce folder.
“Mave.”
“What?”
“There’s something else.”
Silas looked over.
Vivien ignored him.
“Seven months ago, Silas asked me to authorize additional protection.”
Mave frowned.
“For me?”
“Yes.”
She turned toward Silas.
“You had people watching me?”
“From a distance.”
“Without telling me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have some kind of allergy to consent?”
Silas rubbed his jaw.
“Apparently.”
One of the security men approached.
“Boss.”
Silas turned.
“We traced the hospital leak. Someone accessed Mrs. Carbone’s private admission record using credentials belonging to Tomas Vieri.”
Silas went still.
Mave noticed.
“Who’s Tomas?”
“My father’s former adviser.”
Vivien added, “And one of the witnesses at our wedding.”
Mave looked between them.
“So he knows everything.”
“Almost,” Silas said.
A phone rang.
Not Silas’s.
Mave’s.
Everyone looked at her.
Unknown number.
Silas held out his hand.
She shook her head.
“My phone.”
“Mave.”
“You said I decide.”
Silas lowered his hand.
She answered.
“Hello?”
A man spoke.
“Ms. Holloway.”
Silas moved closer.
Mave switched to speaker.
“Tomas?”
A soft laugh.
“Clever.”
“What do you want?”
“Silas knows.”
Silas’s voice turned cold.
“You exposed Vivien.”
“I exposed a lie.”
“You sent men after Mave.”
“I sent men to bring her somewhere safe.”
Mave looked toward the broken skin on her arm from the townhouse escape.
“Your definition of safe needs work.”
Tomas laughed.
“I see why he likes you.”
Mave’s face hardened.
“Wrong word.”
Silas glanced at her.
Tomas continued.
“The Creel divorce becomes final, Silas loses leverage over the shipping board. Vivien sells her shares, and everything your father built becomes vulnerable.”
Vivien stepped forward.
“My shares are mine.”
“Your father would disagree.”
“My father is dead.”
“So is Silas’s.”
Silence.
Then Tomas said, “Some of us still remember our obligations.”
The call ended.
Mave stared at the phone.
Silas turned to his men.
“Find him.”
They left.
Mave looked at Vivien.
“What happens when the divorce becomes final?”
“I gain unrestricted control of my shares.”
“And Tomas loses influence.”
“Yes.”
Mave thought.
“Then why expose the marriage?”
Silas answered.
“To create pressure.”
“No.”
He frowned.
Mave pointed toward Vivien.
“If Tomas wants the marriage maintained, publicly exposing it makes no sense unless he expected something else to happen afterward.”
Vivien understood first.
“He wanted the world watching me.”
Mave nodded.
“And Silas.”
Silas’s eyes narrowed.
“While someone moved against the company.”
A security analyst across the room suddenly spoke.
“Mr. Carbone.”
He turned the laptop.
“Someone initiated emergency voting procedures at Creel Shipping forty minutes ago.”
Vivien rushed over.
“What?”
“Board meeting at noon.”
Silas looked at the screen.
Mave folded her arms.
“There it is.”
Vivien stared at her.
“Tomas isn’t trying to save the marriage.”
“No.”
Mave looked at Silas.
“He’s keeping both of you distracted while he takes what the marriage was created to protect.”
Silas’s phone buzzed.
A message.
NOON. COME ALONE OR THE VOTE ENDS EVERYTHING.
Silas started toward the door.
Mave caught his sleeve.
“No.”
He looked down at her hand.
She released him.
“You don’t get to walk into another secret and expect everybody else to wait.”
“Mave—”
“You have spent four years solving problems by deciding what everyone else is allowed to know.”
She pointed at Vivien.
“That created this.”
Then at herself.
“And this.”
Silas stared at her.
“What do you suggest?”
Mave’s expression softened by half an inch.
May you like
“We stop letting Tomas decide who stands in which room.”
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