she ended the call.
Nathan stared at the dark screen.
Charles stood and walked to the conference room door.
He closed the privacy blinds, shutting out the curious faces beyond the glass.
“You are being placed on administrative leave effective immediately,” he said.
“Your access to firm systems will be suspended while we conduct a formal review.”
“You cannot suspend me over a domestic dispute.”
“We are suspending you over undisclosed financial interests, questionable reimbursements, and false statements made to compliance.”
Nathan gave a short, incredulous smile.
“Do you understand how much revenue I bring into this firm?”
Charles’s expression did not change.
“Do you understand how quickly revenue becomes liability?”
It was almost the same lesson Elena had taught Nathan the day they met.
An attractive deal could still contain a fatal assumption.
Nathan’s fatal assumption was that the people around him would always protect his value instead of protecting themselves.
Marissa asked him to surrender his laptop, building pass, and company phone.
He refused at first.
Then security appeared outside the conference room.
Only then did he place the phone on the table.
As the device left his hand, his arrogance changed shape.
It did not disappear.
It sharpened into anger.
“This is defamation,” he said.
“My attorney will destroy this.”
“You should contact one,” Marissa replied.
Nathan walked from the room with a security officer two steps behind him.
The office had gone unnaturally quiet.
People stared at computer screens that were no longer holding their attention.
Claire stood near her desk as he passed.
He stopped.
“You think they’ll reward you for betraying me?”
Claire swallowed.
“I think they’ll stop asking me to lie for you.”
Nathan looked at her for a long second, then continued toward the elevator.
By noon, he was in the back seat of a hired car, using his personal phone to call Elena repeatedly.
She did not answer.
He called his sister, Rebecca, instead.
For months, Nathan had prepared Rebecca to distrust Elena.
He described his wife as fragile, suspicious, and overwhelmed by pregnancy.
He told Rebecca that Elena had become obsessed with money and imagined insults in ordinary conversations.
Rebecca had believed him because Nathan delivered every story with exhausted patience.
Now he told her Elena had launched a vindictive attack that threatened his career.
“She stole private financial information,” he said.
“She sent it to my firm.
She’s trying to ruin me before the divorce.”
Rebecca asked the question he did not expect.
“Are the records real?”
Nathan went silent.
“That isn’t the point.”
“It is the only point.”
“You’re taking her side?”
“I’m asking whether you used company money to take another woman to hotels while Elena was pregnant.”
Nathan ended the call.
The car pulled up outside the Queens apartment shortly after one.
He stepped onto the wet pavement carrying the same overnight bag he had taken to Meline’s hotel suite.
He expected Elena to open the door and begin negotiating the moment she saw him.
Instead, his key did not turn.
A licensed locksmith had changed the cylinder that morning under instructions from Elena’s attorney.
A temporary occupancy agreement, signed months earlier after Nathan began spending most nights elsewhere, allowed Elena to secure the apartment once divorce proceedings commenced.
Nathan had ignored that clause because he
