Chapter 2 - Landing in ParadiseThe private jet touched down at Palm Beach International Airport at 6:15 AM. The air was thick, humid, and smelled faintly of saltwater and blooming hibiscus—a sharp, insulting contrast to the freezing concrete jungle I had left behind.
I didn't bother changing out of my bespoke charcoal pantsuit. I stepped off the tarmac into the blistering Florida sun, sliding on my designer sunglasses to mask the dark circles under my eyes. Waiting by the curb was a rented black Mercedes SUV, driven by a local private investigator I had retained within two hours of hanging up on Gloria.
"Morning, Mrs. Carter," the investigator, a sharp-eyed veteran named David, said as I slid into the back seat. "You look like you're ready for war."
"I am," I replied, tossing a thick manila folder onto the center console. "Tell me they haven't left the resort yet."
"They're still at the Boca Raton luxury estate where the reception was held," David said, merging smoothly into the coastal highway traffic. "The whole family is there. Sebastian booked out the entire east wing using your corporate black card. He thought he was being subtle, but every charge pinged directly through your automated expense alerts."
I let out a cold, humorless laugh. Sebastian had used my corporate card to fund his wedding to another woman. It was almost poetic in its stupidity.
"Did the financial authorization go through?" I asked, my heart tightening slightly.
"That's the interesting part," David glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "At 11:45 PM last night—right in the middle of their first dance—an automated wire transfer attempt was made from Carter Holdings to an account in the Cayman Islands under Alyssa Monroe's name. For two point five million dollars."
"And?"
"It bounced," David smiled. "You implemented a two-key authorization protocol last month for any outgoing transfers over fifty thousand. Without your physical token or biometric signature, the bank locked the account and flagged it as suspicious activity. Right now, Sebastian's offshore nest egg is sitting in a digital purgatory, and the bank’s fraud department is trying to reach the primary account holder."
"Which is me," I whispered.
May you like
"Which is you."
I stared out the window as palm trees blurred past. Sebastian thought he had cast me aside as the cold, unfeeling career woman who neglected him. He was about to find out what happened when a apex predator decided to reclaim her territory.
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