Chapter 6 - THE TOKEN
I drove to my office while Mom stayed with Donovan and a private nurse.
The wire had been directed to Desert Hearth Holdings.
Bonnie’s shell company.
Caden’s approval token should have been impossible for him to possess. Mine was stored on a hardware key locked in my home office safe.
Then I remembered the night two months earlier when Caden surprised me with dinner.
“Go take a bath,” he had said. “I’ll clean up.”
My laptop had been open on the desk.
My safe had also been open because I was signing a financing package.
I felt stupid for exactly ten seconds.
Then I got busy.
Our IT director pulled access logs.
Someone had cloned the device certificate from my hardware key during a twenty-two-minute window that night.
The home network recorded Caden’s phone in the office the entire time.
I called Priya.
“He tried to steal company money.”
“Do not call him.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good. We notify the bank, preserve evidence, and decide whether law enforcement gets involved after we understand the full scope.”
At 4:10 p.m., Caden called me.
I answered.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At work.”
“You locked me out of the joint card.”
“The card is mine.”
“We’re married.”
“You noticed.”
His voice sharpened. “Marcus says you’re hiding assets.”
“Marcus says a lot for a man forming companies with your mother.”
Silence.
Then Caden whispered, “What are you talking about?”
I almost believed him.
Almost.
“You tell me.”
He hung up.
Five minutes later, a security alert hit my phone.
Someone had entered the mansion’s underground garage using an old contractor code.
I opened the live camera.
A man in a baseball cap crossed between the parked cars.
He carried a small black case.
Then he looked up.
May you like
It was Marcus.
And he was heading for the interior door where my mother and son were sleeping.
