Chapter 6 - Toby’s Heartbreak and the Hotel Room
I walked through the Minneapolis airport in a total daze, my hand clamped tightly around Toby’s little fingers. My instincts as a mother had completely taken over, pushing down the tidal wave of grief and shock until we were somewhere safe.
I didn't book a return flight immediately. Toby was hyperventilating, his small chest heaving with deep, ragged sobs. He couldn't handle getting back on an airplane, and truthfully, neither could I.
I ordered a cab and checked us into a quiet, mid-range hotel ten minutes from the airport. The moment the heavy wooden door clicked shut behind us, the reality of what had just occurred crashed down upon us like a tidal wave.
Toby collapsed onto the edge of the queen-sized bed, burying his face into the pillows.
"Why did he lie, Mom?" he cried, his voice muffled by the comforter. "Did he not want to be my dad anymore? Did I do something wrong with my drawing? Was I too loud in the mornings?"
I dropped to my knees on the carpet in front of him, pulling him up into my arms and holding him with every ounce of strength I possessed.
"Listen to me, Toby Matthews," I said, wiping the wet tears from his red cheeks, forcing him to look straight into my eyes. "Look at Mom. What happened today is entirely on your father. You are the smartest, kindest, most wonderful little boy in the world. Your dad has a sickness in his heart. He forgot how to tell the truth. But that is his failure, not yours. Never yours. Do you hear me?"
"I don't want to fly on a plane ever again," Toby whimpered, his small fingers twisting the fabric of my sweater. "I hate airplanes."
"Then we won't fly," I promised, kissing his forehead. "We'll take trains. We'll drive. We'll do whatever you want."
It took nearly two hours to calm Toby down enough for him to drink some apple juice and fall into an exhausted, fitful sleep. I pulled the heavy blankets over his small shoulders, stroked his hair until his breathing evened out, and then sat down at the small desk in the corner of the room.
My phone had been buzzing nonstop in my purse.
There were twenty-seven missed calls from Brandon, fourteen text messages pleading for me to answer, and three missed calls from his mother.
I ignored every single one of Brandon's messages and instead opened our banking app on my phone.
Now that the blindfold had been ripped from my eyes, I started digging. For the past year, Brandon had handled the primary investment accounts, claiming he was using a financial advisor through the pilots' union to maximize our returns for Toby’s college fund.
I logged into the linked secondary accounts—something I hadn't done in months because I trusted my husband blindly.
What I found made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Over the past eleven months, over eighty-five thousand dollars had been systematically transferred out of our joint savings and Toby’s 529 college fund into an unlisted LLC titled Skyline Horizon Holdings.
A quick corporate search of the LLC revealed the registered agent: Brandon Matthews and Elena Vance.
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He hadn't just cheated on me. He had stolen our family’s life savings, robbed his own son’s future education fund, and invested it directly into Elena Vance’s luxury real estate projects in Minneapolis to make himself look like a wealthy, high-rolling investor partner.
My hands trembled with pure adrenaline. This was no longer just infidelity. This was grand larceny, fraud, and embezzlement.
