Chapter 5 - The Aftermath
Grant's empire collapsed in exactly forty-eight hours.
His accounts were seized. His assets were frozen. The Connecticut estate went into foreclosure. When the federal indictments dropped, Vanessa packed her champagne silk dresses and vanished before the FBI even finished raiding the house, realizing her billionaire meal ticket was headed for a federal penitentiary.
Grant's mother, Evelyn, tried to hire the best defense attorneys in the state, but none of them would take the case. The paper trail Claire had curated was too perfect. It was a flawless, irrefutable checkmate.
Six months later, a baby girl was born in a private, sunlit hospital room in a city Grant would never know.
Claire sat in a rocking chair, looking down at her daughter, swaddled in a small knitted blanket. She was safe, she was entirely financially independent thanks to the private consulting firm she had quietly built over the last year, and she was free.
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The television on the wall of her hospital room played on mute, flashing a breaking news banner: FORMER REAL ESTATE MOGUL GRANT WHITMORE SENTENCED TO FIFTEEN YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON.
Claire didn't even bother turning up the volume. She simply smiled, kissed her daughter's forehead, and turned the television off.
