I did.

It was a draft petition.

Not filed.

Not yet.

An emergency petition seeking temporary control over my financial affairs.

I stared at her.

“On what grounds?”

“Emotional instability.”

I laughed.

I couldn’t help it.

Lena didn’t.

“They’ve been building evidence.”

“What evidence?”

She slid photographs across the table.

Me crying outside a hospital after my mother’s surgery.

Me arguing with Carter outside a restaurant.

Me asleep in a car after an overnight deposition.

Statements from a private therapist I had seen after my father died.

My blood went cold.

“How did they get these?”

“We’re working on that.”

Then she showed me a text exchange.

Carter to Chloe.

The wedding matters. She’ll be exhausted and emotional.

Chloe:

And if she won’t sign?

Carter:

We push her until she loses control.

Another message.

Three hundred witnesses would be useful.

My fingers tightened around the paper.

Suddenly, everything about the wedding made sense.

The huge guest list Carter insisted on.

The executives.

The investors.

The family friends.

The photographers.

He didn’t just want a wedding.

He wanted an audience.

If I screamed when he publicly humiliated me…

If I attacked Chloe…

If I shattered a glass…

If I appeared hysterical…

Carter would have witnesses.

Video.

Testimony.

Evidence that Evelyn Hart was unstable.

And once he had temporary authority, he could force through the trust guarantee while challenges crawled through court.

I looked at Lena.

“So the affair is bait.”

“Partly.”

The word hurt more than I expected.

“Partly?”

She didn’t look away.

“I’m sorry, Evelyn.”

She pushed another folder toward me.

Hotel records.

Photographs.

Messages.

Two years.

Carter and Chloe had been sleeping together for nearly two years.

My sister.

The child I helped raise when our father worked late.

The girl who slept in my bed during thunderstorms.

The person whose college tuition I quietly helped pay after our father’s death.

I stared at a photograph of Chloe entering a hotel with my fiancé.

Something inside me finally broke.

Not loudly.

There were no tears.

It was more like a bridge collapsing underwater.

Invisible from the surface.

Devastating beneath it.

“Does my mother know?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Evelyn—”

“Does Carter know we found this?”

“No.”

“Does Chloe?”

“No.”

I closed the folder.

“Then the wedding continues.”

Even Miriam looked surprised when I told her.

“You’re serious?”

“Completely.”

“You could cancel tomorrow.”

“And Carter would disappear, restructure Westbridge, destroy records and claim the forged document was unauthorized activity by someone else.”

“Possibly.”

“If we let him believe the marriage solves everything, he’ll keep moving.”

Lena watched me carefully.

“You want him to complete the transaction.”

“I want him to try.”

Miriam leaned back.

“And what exactly are you planning?”

I looked at the engagement ring Carter had given me.

Then I smiled.

“I’m going to give him the happiest wedding day of his life.”

Forty-eight hours before the ceremony, everything changed again.

I received a text from an unknown number.

COME ALONE.

An address followed.

A church in Brooklyn.

I should have ignored it.

Instead, I told Lena where I was going and had security stay two blocks away.

The church was empty except for one person.

Chloe.

She stood near the altar wearing jeans, a sweater and no makeup.