Chapter 9 - The Secret Offshore Account
While Rowan and Selina were hatching their desperate extortion scheme in Queens, I was sitting in the nursery of the Greenwich estate, watching Leo sleep peacefully after his afternoon feeding.
Gideon walked in quietly, holding two glasses of sparkling apple cider. He handed one to me and leaned over the crib, his face softening as he watched his grandson breathe.
“He has your determination, Phoebe,” my dad said softly. “He doesn’t cry unless he needs something real. A very practical boy.”
“He gets that from you,” I smiled, taking a sip.
“Our legal team informed me that Rowan and his mother just retained Arthur Pendelton,” Gideon said, his tone shifting back to business.
I raised an eyebrow. “Pendelton? The tabloid divorce lawyer who specializes in blackmail settlements?”
“The very same,” Gideon replied. “They’re preparing an emergency petition for joint custody, claiming you alienated the father and suffered severe postpartum psychosis during the delivery. They’re planning to leak the story to the New York Post tomorrow morning to force a ten-million-dollar non-disclosure settlement.”
I let out a soft, dry laugh. “They really have no idea who they’re dealing with, do they?”
“None at all,” Gideon agreed. “Shall I have Pendelton disbarred by tomorrow afternoon?”
“Not yet,” I said, opening my tablet. “Let them file the petition. Let them step into the courtroom under oath. Because while they were planning their little blackmail campaign, I finished decrypting the secondary hard drive Rowan left in the townhouse safe.”
Gideon looked intrigued. “What did you find?”
I pulled up a series of banking records from a private institution in Zurich, Switzerland.
“Rowan didn’t just embezzle four hundred and eighty thousand dollars from Crestview,” I explained, showing the verified international wire trails. “For the last four years, he has been laundering money for a fraudulent real estate development scheme run by Selina’s brother in New Jersey. Over two point four million dollars moved through that Swiss account.”
Gideon whistled softly. “That’s not just grand larceny. That’s federal wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering under the RICO statute.”
“And there’s more,” I added, tapping the screen to bring up an audio file. “Rowan had an automated recording app on his phone that backed up all his incoming and outgoing calls to his personal cloud drive. I have the full audio recording of our phone call while I was in labor.”
I pressed play.
The room filled with Rowan’s cold, mocking voice: “Handle it yourself, Phoebe. Stop being so dramatic.”
Followed clearly by Selina’s voice: “Tell her women have been giving birth in fields for thousands of years... Call a cab, Phoebe. Enjoy the cake.”
Followed by Rowan’s cruel laughter: “See? Mom gets it. I’ll see you Monday.”
I stopped the recording.
May you like
“They want to tell a family court judge that Rowan was an eager, loving father who was wrongfully excluded from the delivery room?” I said, looking at my father. “Let them swear to that under oath on Thursday morning. That way, when I play this tape, it won’t just be a custody denial. It will be aggravated perjury.”
Gideon smiled, a fierce, cold pride burning in his eyes. “I’ll arrange for the best federal prosecutor in the district to be sitting in the gallery.”
