Chapter 1 - THE DEBT ATTACHED TO MY NAME
I turned away from Mariana and pressed the phone closer to my ear.
“What did you find?”
My attorney, David Mercer, paused before answering.
“Are you somewhere private?”
“No.”
“Then don’t react visibly. Your Social Security number is attached to a commercial credit facility worth two-point-six million dollars.”
I looked at Rodrigo.
The smugness had disappeared from his face.
“I don’t own a company with a credit facility.”
“According to the lender, you do. Northstar Medical Routing LLC. You’re listed as its founder, managing member, and personal guarantor.”
I had never heard the name.
David continued. “The account appeared during the asset-and-liability search we initiated for the lottery claim. Do not confront anyone about the details yet. Do not sign anything. Come directly to my office.”
Mariana moved closer.
“Who is on the phone?”
I lowered it.
“Do you know Northstar Medical Routing?”
Her answer came too quickly.
“No.”
Rodrigo stepped away from the desk.
“This is a private office. If you’re finished with your performance, security can escort you out.”
I looked at him. “What was supposed to happen tonight?”
“I don’t know what you heard.”
“I heard you tell my wife she wouldn’t need me after tonight.”
Mariana reached for my arm.
I moved before she could touch me.
“Ethan, please. Rodrigo kissed me. I pulled away.”
“You had both hands on his chest.”
“I was shocked.”
“You said I still thought you were obsessed with me.”
Her polished office expression collapsed for a second.
Employees remained gathered in the hallway. Several held phones at chest level. The scene had already become something larger than a private betrayal.
Rodrigo noticed them.
“Everyone return to work,” he snapped.
Nobody moved until Vithera’s general counsel appeared near the elevators.
Judith Lane was a compact woman with silver hair and the controlled voice of someone accustomed to delivering bad news without raising it.
“Mr. Santillan, Ms. Robles, remain in this office. Everyone else, clear the corridor.”
Mariana stared at me. “Please don’t leave like this.”
“I came here to give you everything I thought you wanted.”
I looked down at the roses, the designer bag, and the keys to the ridiculous pink SUV.
The diamond ring remained in my pocket.
It had cost more than my first car.
I had planned to give it to Mariana during dinner because our eighth anniversary had passed while I was working through an emergency distribution failure. I thought an expensive ring could apologize for another evening she had spent alone.
Judith looked through the glass doors toward the SUV.
“Does that vehicle belong to Vithera?”
“No,” I said. “It was supposed to belong to my wife.”
Mariana’s lips parted.
I called the dealership.
The sales director explained that the Brabus had been delivered for presentation but title transfer and final acceptance had not been completed. I could cancel, though the twenty-five-thousand-dollar customization deposit was nonrefundable.
“Cancel it.”
“Ethan,” Mariana said.
I ended the call.
Then I picked up the Louis Vuitton bag. The roses stayed on the marble.
Rodrigo gave a short, humorless laugh.
“You think money makes you powerful now?”
“I don’t know how much money I have.”
Mariana looked confused. “The call said eighty million.”
David was still on the line.
“The advertised jackpot is eighty million,” he explained. “The commission has received multiple preliminary claims. If all twenty matching tickets are valid, your gross share will be exactly four million dollars.”
Mariana stared at my phone.
Four million was not eighty million.
It was still enough to alter every decision in our marriage.
More importantly, it had paid for the financial review that discovered a debt someone had attached to my identity.
Judith stepped inside the office.
“Mr. Cole, before you leave, did you hear anything suggesting company business was involved?”
“My attorney advised me not to discuss details here.”
“That is sensible. Preserve anything you heard or saw. Vithera will be opening an internal inquiry.”
Rodrigo adjusted his charcoal suit.
“You’re treating an employee’s marital dispute as a corporate event.”
“You are the Vice President of Operations,” Judith replied. “You were embracing the Director of Corporate Relations inside her office while employees recorded you. It became a corporate event when you created it on company property.”
Mariana tried following me into the corridor.
Judith stopped her.
“I need both of you here.”
“Ethan is my husband.”
“Then he knows where you live.”
The elevator doors opened.
Before stepping inside, I turned back.
Mariana stood beside Rodrigo, both framed by the office where I had heard them planning my removal.
She looked frightened.
Not heartbroken.
Not ashamed.
Frightened.
David spoke again after the elevator doors closed.
“There’s one more thing about Northstar.”
“What?”
“The lender sent us the signature page from the guarantee.”
May you like
“Whose signature is on it?”
“Yours.”
