Nathan stared at the second page of the document as if the words might rearrange themselves if he waited long enough.
They did not.
Vale Harbor Holdings hereby calls an emergency meeting of the board of Mercer Reconstructive Institute to consider the immediate suspension of Dr.
Nathan Mercer’s executive and financial authority.
Below that sentence appeared the name of the controlling beneficiary.
Cassandra Vale Mercer.
His wife.
The woman beside him, Elise Ward, leaned over his shoulder.
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her rose-gold suitcase.
“Your wife owns the institute?” she asked.
Nathan folded the page so quickly that he nearly tore it.
“No.
She doesn’t own anything.”
His mother stepped closer.
“Then why is her name on the paper?”
Nathan looked up at the glass corridor.
Cassandra stood above them with one hand around her phone.
She was not crying.
She was not waving or shouting.
She simply watched him with the expression of someone who had finally stopped protecting him from consequences.
His phone began to ring.
The screen showed the name Marisol Chen, the institute’s chief financial officer.
Nathan declined the call.
It rang again.
At the nearby lounge desk, Brooke was trying to pay for guest access with the institute’s platinum card.
The receptionist inserted it twice, then handed it back.
“I’m sorry.
It’s been declined.”
Brooke laughed nervously.
“That’s impossible.”
A third call appeared on Nathan’s screen.
This time he answered.
“What?”
Marisol’s voice was loud enough for Elise to hear.
“The bank has frozen all discretionary accounts pending an ownership review.
I also need an explanation for eighteen thousand four hundred dollars in airfare, hotel deposits, and private transfers coded as a medical strategy retreat.”
Nathan turned away from his family.
“It is a strategy retreat.”
“With your mother, your sister, two children, and Ms.
Ward?” Marisol asked.
“The board meeting begins at four.
You have been instructed not to access institute systems or authorize further payments.”
Nathan ended the call without responding.
The process server was still standing beside him.
“There is a second envelope,” the man said.
He handed it to Elise.
Her name was printed across the front.
“What is this?” she demanded.
“Preservation notice and request for records.”
Elise opened it.
Her face changed as she read the first page.
Attached to the notice was a transfer authorization directing four hundred eighty-six thousand dollars from the institute’s expansion fund to Ward Strategic Consulting.
The signature approving the transfer appeared to be Cassandra’s.
It was not.
Elise looked at Nathan.
“You told me your wife approved this.”
“She did.”
“No,” Cassandra said through his phone.
Nathan spun around.
He had called her without realizing it, his thumb pressing her name while he gripped the device.
Cassandra’s voice was calm.
“I have never approved a payment to Ward Strategic Consulting.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“You are trying to destroy my clinic because you saw me with another woman.”
“No.
I am protecting an institute from a director who lied about being in surgery, charged a family holiday to company accounts, and submitted a document bearing my forged signature.”
The gate announcement called their flight.
No one moved.
Nathan lowered his voice.
“Come downstairs.
We will discuss this privately.”
