At my birthday party, my husband tied me to a ceiling beam and wh*pped me thirty times because I had stained his mistress’s dress. “Maybe now you’ll learn your place,” he laughed while everyone watched. I didn’t cry. When they finally cut me down, I picked up my phone and called my five brothers. “Make his entire family beg for mercy,” I whispered. Then the front gates suddenly slammed shut.
She set her champagne glass on the nearest tray, smoothed the front of her silver dress — the dress that had started all of this — and walked toward me with the measured pace of a woman who believed she still controlled the room.
“Flora,” she said.
“Can we speak privately?”
“No,” I said.
She stopped.
“I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
“Then say it here.”
She glanced at Noah.
At Julian.
At the remaining guests pressed against the walls.
She made a small calculation and decided.
“I didn’t know about the money,” she said.
“Whatever Arthur has done, whatever Marcus has found — I had no part in it.”
“That’s not what the CFO’s statement says,” Marcus said from across the room.
Clover’s eyes moved to him.
“I’m sorry?”
“Page twenty-two,” Marcus said.
“There’s a payment.
Two hundred and forty thousand dollars.
Routed through a company called Silverline Creative Consulting.
That company has one registered director.” He paused.
“Would you like to tell everyone who that is, or should I?”
The color left Clover’s face so quickly it was almost clinical.
“That company was set up for legitimate work,” she said.
“I did consulting work for Vance Construction.
That was entirely legal.”
