Chapter 10 - Selina Changes Sides
Selina called me from a parking garage.
That was how she opened the conversation.
“I’m in a parking garage.”
I closed my laptop.
“Why?”
“Because Flynn’s uncle sent someone to my apartment.”
My stomach tightened.
“Are you safe?”
“I think so.”
“Where are you?”
She gave me the address.
I called Elliot, then the investigator working for the board’s special committee.
Forty minutes later, Selina sat in a secure conference room with three lawyers, one forensic accountant, and me.
She looked furious.
Fear sat underneath it.
“What happened?” Lena asked.
Selina unlocked her phone.
“A man came to my building and told the doorman he worked for Vance Global legal. He asked for boxes Flynn had stored with me.”
“Did Flynn store boxes with you?”
“No.”
“Did you let him upstairs?”
“No. The doorman called me.”
“What did the man look like?”
She described him.
The investigator wrote it down.
Then Selina looked at me.
“I think I know what he wanted.”
She reached into her tote bag and took out a small external hard drive.
I stared.
“What is that?”
“My backup.”
Flynn had taught her to keep copies because he never trusted IT.
That irony deserved its own monument.
The drive contained five years of executive correspondence from Flynn’s office.
Calendar exports.
Draft contracts.
Expense spreadsheets.
Scanned signatures.
Vendor presentations.
And a folder labeled G.V.
Grant Vance.
Selina had never opened it until after her suspension.
“I thought it was family stuff,” she said.
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“Read.”
The first email was from Grant to Flynn eighteen months earlier.
KEEP MARSTON OUT OF THE BOARD DECK. WE DON’T NEED THOMAS HALE’S GHOST ASKING QUESTIONS.
My throat closed.
Flynn’s response came seven minutes later.
MABEL DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT SIDE OF THE COMPANY. SHE NEVER LOOKED AT HER FATHER’S FILES.
The room went completely still.
I read it again.
Not because I misunderstood.
Because I understood too well.
Flynn knew I had not opened the folder.
He had discussed it with Grant.
Selina whispered, “I’m sorry.”
I did not answer.
Lena opened another email.
Grant had asked whether the Hale trust could activate governance rights.
Flynn replied:
NOT UNLESS MABEL ACTS. SHE WON’T. SHE HATES CORPORATE POLITICS AND I KEEP HER OUT OF FINANCE.
I felt heat crawl up my neck.
I keep her out of finance.
Not she left.
Not she chose home.
I keep her out.
The sentence stripped away every version of our marriage Flynn had used to excuse himself.
The eighteen-hundred-dollar budget was not carelessness.
The missing account access was not simplification.
The constant jokes about my career were not insecurity alone.
They were strategy.
Priya arrived twenty minutes later and read the emails.
Her expression became frighteningly calm.
“This helps the divorce case.”
“That feels like the smallest problem in the room.”
“It is not small to you.”
She was right.
I hated that too.
The corporate investigators found worse.
Grant had sent Flynn summaries of Marston payments.
Not every invoice.
Enough that Flynn could no longer plausibly claim total ignorance.
One email discussed “keeping legacy arrangements clean until North Coast closes.”
Another instructed Flynn to avoid naming beneficial owners in board materials.
Flynn had replied with one word.
Understood.
The special committee called him in the next morning.
His attorney tried to delay.
The board refused.
I did not attend.
That surprised everyone.
“You don’t want to watch?” Ava asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I know what he did to me. I don’t need to watch him lie about the company in real time.”
Instead, I went to work.
Norwood had assigned me to a manufacturing restructuring in Worcester.
For six hours, I reviewed inventory, debt schedules, and plant utilization.
Nobody cared whose wife I was.
Nobody asked about diamonds.
At lunch, the client’s CFO said, “You caught the lease problem before our own team.”
I almost cried.
I did not.
I wrote it in my notebook instead.
Competence had become something I collected in small proofs.
Like physical therapy for identity.
That afternoon, Ava called.
“Flynn admitted he knew Grant had an interest in Marston.”
I closed my office door.
“How much interest?”
“He claims Grant told him it was a minority stake.”
“Did he disclose it?”
“No.”
“Then what exactly is his defense?”
“That he relied on family assurances.”
I laughed without humor.
“The CEO of a company with hundreds of employees relied on Uncle Grant.”
“Basically.”
“What now?”
“The board is considering termination for cause.”
My heart changed rhythm.
There it was.
Not suspension.
Not leave.
Termination.
I expected triumph.
Instead, I thought of Evie.
Her father losing the title he had built his identity around.
His humiliation would not stay neatly on his side of the family line.
Children felt weather adults pretended was private.
“Do they need my vote?”
“Not at the board level.”
“Good.”
“You sound relieved.”
“I am.”
I did not want the story to become Mabel fired her husband.
I wanted the facts to do what facts did.
Stand.
Then Selina’s lawyer called.
The special committee had offered her a cooperation agreement covering internal discipline in exchange for full records and testimony.
She had accepted.
That evening, she texted me one sentence.
I know this does not make us friends.
I wrote back.
It doesn’t.
Then, after a long pause, I added:
But telling the truth matters.
Her reply came almost immediately.
I wish I’d done it sooner.
So did I.
Not because I wanted her help.
Because so many disasters begin with people deciding the truth can wait until it becomes convenient.
The board terminated Flynn the next morning.
For cause.
Failure to disclose related-party interests.
Misuse of corporate assets.
Destruction-risk instructions regarding records.
Material breaches of fiduciary duty.
The affair appeared only as context for the expense review.
Not the reason.
Flynn called me at 6:14 a.m.
I answered because Evie was still asleep.
“You got what you wanted.”
His voice sounded empty.
“No.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“I wanted a husband who respected me.”
Silence.
“I wanted to believe leaving my career was a shared decision. I wanted our daughter to grow up in one home. I wanted to bring you dinner that night.”
My voice broke.
“I did not want this.”
He said nothing.
Then, quietly, “I didn’t think you’d ever open the folder.”
There it was.
The confession I had not asked for.
“You knew.”
“I knew there were shares. I didn’t know how much.”
“You kept me dependent because you knew.”
“I was trying to keep our family stable.”
“No.”
“Mabel—”
“You were trying to keep your position stable.”
He breathed hard.
“You think you’re better than me now?”
I looked toward the stairs where Evie’s night-light glowed.
“No.”
That was the strange truth.
I did not need to be better than Flynn.
I needed to stop being smaller for him.
“I think I’m done asking you to decide what I’m worth.”
I ended the call.
At seven, I made Evie waffles.
At eight, I logged into work.
At nine, the news broke that Flynn Vance had been removed as CEO.
May you like
By ten, three reporters were outside my house.
And at eleven, the FBI called Elliot about Grant Vance.
