Just Before My Wedding: Trapped By My Ruthless Boss novel Chapter 153

Chapter 153

OCEANS.

It’s been two days since she’d walked out of that apartment and told me not to reach for her again. had obeyed.

That was the part that was killing me. I’d kept the promise exactly the way a man keeps his hand off a wound badly, and only because touching it made it worse.

Reeves met me in the back room of a private cigar lounge I owned but never used.

I had chosen it because I couldn’t stand my office anymore.

Every time I stepped onto my floor, I saw Nadine standing near Kiss’s desk with terror on her face. I saw Kiss walking through SSC’s lobby with security behind her. I saw the empty chair where she used to sit and my own reflection in the glass wall… It was fucking too much to handle.

Reeves sat across from me with a sealed folder on the table between us. His coat was damp from rain, and his expression wasn’t any better.

“You said it couldn’t wait,” I said.

“It can’t.”

He set the folder on the table and turned it to face me.

“You were right to have me look at the uncle.” He opened it. “Frederick Harry isn’t managing his niece’s inheritance. He’s moving it.”

I didn’t touch the folder. I let him finish while I prayed to God most high for the patience and calm to sit through it all.

“Kisarel’s mother left her money,” Reeves continued. “A lot of it. Held in trust until she turned twenty–five. And Fred is the trustee — he’s controlled every cent of it since the mother died.”

“And he’s been stealing it,” I said.

“Slowly and carefully. Nothing an ordinary audit would catch.” He tapped the top page. “He moves it in small pieces, disguised as legitimate investments, and he’s been running those pieces through your merger to hide where they actually go. It looks like ordinary business flowing into Stark Sovereign Capital. Underneath, it’s her inheritance walking into his pocket.”

So Fred had been robbing her for years. On paper, he was the caretaker. In practice, he’d been threading the estate’s assets into a web of instruments that all terminated in the same place: a merger vehicle folding into Stark Sovereign Capital’s own acquisition pipeline. My company. He’d been using the coming merger as the laundry.

ctr

Chape

4 puked up the best page

A property management stinntary, RiverTalley Holdings. My eyes moved over names, dates. signatures, percentages that looked harmless until I saw where the money had gone.

“Fred’s company?”

“Two of them,” Reeves said. “One under his direct ownership. One through a cousin on his wife’s side. The cousin is a drunk and signs wherever they point

I flipped to the next page.

“And Jace?” I asked in a flat tone.

“That’s where it gets interesting.” He said, and I looked up immediately. “Alexander Jace is the mechanism.” Reeves slid a second set of pages across. “The marriage is the trigger. Everything routes through him.”

I read it. And the further I read, the colder I got.

Spousal Management Consent and Marital Asset Authorization.

Reeves watched my face. “That draft was prepared six months ago.”

I nodded, taking in all the soft, harmless language that might look protective to a curious person, almost loving…

‘Upon solemnization of marriage…‘

Transfer of administrative control…‘

‘Temporary spousal oversight…‘

‘Capable hands…

My jaw locked.

“Capable hands,” I repeated.

Reeves nodded. “That phrase appears in three related documents.”

I turned the page, and there it was again.

‘Capable hands…‘

I leaned back in the chair and pressed my thumb against my mouth.

r

The contract did not say anything that pointed to stealing. It said preservation, oversight, and protection.

2/4

Chapter 113

#sad kisaret Harry upon marriage and upon reaching the age of twenty–five agreed that asset claims, trust interests, voting rights, and dormant inheritance positions attached to everything her parents ever owned, including RiverTalley, would be administered by her legal spouse until such time as he deemed transfer back appropriate.

Until such time as he deemed.

I felt something quiet and violent settle in my

“When did she sign this?”

chest.

Reeves placed a thinner page on top. Less than three months ago.

Fuck.

で

“What the fuck was she signing a spousal consent for?” I was burning up with rage.

Reeves only shrugged. “Can’t tell.”

“Her birthday and the wedding are the same day,” Reeves went on. “That’s not a coincidence they stumbled into. Fred chose the date. The inheritance unlocks on her twenty–fifth, and the transfer clause activates on the marriage, and they’ve stacked them onto the same morning so that the moment she becomes an heiress, she stops being one. It all clicks into place at once. She’ll walk down the aisle owning a fortune and walk back up owning nothing, and every signature that made it happen will be her own.”

Fuck.

In less than two weeks, she was going to stand before God and marry the very man who’s shoving a knife into her chest.

I could sit on it and let the wedding–day plan run and spring the trap on Fred at the altar, which was clean and satisfying. But that math only worked if I was willing to let her walk all the way to the edge of it first.

I wasn’t willing to.

I stood up abruptly. “I’m going to find her.”

“Where?” Reeves asked.

“Jace’s house.” I was already moving for the exit.

“But I thought she moved?” He asked, following me behind.

ľ

“If anyone knows where she’s staying, it’s the man who’s counting the days until he owns her.”

alt