Chapter 8 - THE DEEPEST BETRAYAL3
Back at the FBI Field Office in Charlotte, the news of Patricia Ferguson’s forced landing in Bermuda arrived via a secure encrypted fax.
Agent Chen entered the glass conference room holding a printed mugshot. It showed Patricia Ferguson, her hair disheveled, her diamond jewelry confiscated, standing against a height chart in a Royal Bermuda Police station.
“She’s in custody,” Chen announced. “The State Department has already approved her emergency extradition. She will be on a military transport plane back to Charlotte by noon tomorrow.”
I sat back in my chair, taking a deep, ragged breath. For the first time in forty-eight hours, the suffocating knot in my chest loosened slightly.
“And the funds?” Mom asked, her eyes never leaving Agent Chen’s face.
“Federal marshals have seized the Bermuda holding assets,” Chen replied. “The four-point-five million dollars from your father’s estate has been frozen and placed into a federal escrow account. Once the grand jury indictments are finalized next week, the funds will be restored to Abigail in full.”
I looked at my mother. Tears welled in my eyes—not tears of fear or grief, but of profound, overwhelming relief.
“Thank you, Mom,” I whispered.
Mom reached across the table, taking my hand in her firm, warm grip. “You don't need to thank me, baby. Your father built that foundation for your future. Nobody was ever going to take it from you.”
“There’s one more thing,” Agent Chen said, her expression softening. “Nicholas Ferguson has requested to see you, Abigail. His attorney says he will execute a full confession and hand over the remaining private encryption keys for the offshore trusts—but only if you agree to speak to him once, face-to-face, before he is transferred to the federal detention center.”
I looked at Marcus, then at Mom.
“You don't have to do it, Abigail,” Mom said softly. “You owe that coward nothing.”
I stood up, pulling my shoulders back. My face was still bruised, my skin pale, but the fear that had haunted me for three years was completely gone.
“I want to see him,” I said, my voice steady and firm. “I want him to look at me when his world collapses.”
Twenty minutes later, I walked into the secure medical holding room at Charlotte Memorial Hospital.
Two armed federal marshals stood outside the door. Inside, Nicholas sat on the edge of the hospital bed, wearing an orange detention jumpsuit over his chest cast. His right arm was in a sling, his forehead covered in bandages.
When the door opened and I walked in, he looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed, filled with a pathetic, desperate longing.
“Abby,” he croaked, taking a step toward me, but the heavy iron ankle restraints rattled violently against the floorboards, stopping him in his tracks. “Abby, thank God you’re okay.”
“Don’t call me Abby,” I said, standing three feet away, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Nicholas,” he stammered, tears streaming down his bruised face. “Please, you have to listen to me. I never wanted any of this to happen! My father... my mother... they told me three years ago that our firm was going under. They said if we didn't secure new capital, we’d lose the estate, the firm, everything!”
“So you found a girl with a dead father and a four-million-dollar trust fund,” I said, my tone ice cold. “You tracked me down at a coffee shop in Raleigh. You memorized my favorite drink. You spent three years pretending to love me.”
“I did love you!” Nicholas sobbed, his voice breaking pitifully. “In the beginning, it was just a plan my mother made! But then I got to know you! You were kind, you were real, you weren't like anyone in my family! I tried to tell my father last year to leave your money alone, but he threatened to put me in prison for tax fraud!”
“You let them lock me in a guest house, Nicholas,” I reminded him, my voice cutting through his pathetic excuses like a scalpel. “You stood outside that door while your mother called me crazy. You watched Elena take my phone. You let your father send armed hitmen to my mother’s home.”
“I didn't know they were going to fire guns!” Nicholas screamed softly, desperate for absolution. “I thought they were just going to take the laptop back!”
“You are a coward, Nicholas,” I said, stepping closer to his bed, looking down into his tear-filled eyes with absolute contempt. “You were too much of a coward to build your own life, too much of a coward to stand up to your mother, and now you’re too much of a coward to face the consequences of what you did.”
Nicholas covered his face with his free hand, weeping openly. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“You’re going to prison,” I said softly. “Your father is going to prison. Your mother is going to prison. And when you get out in fifteen or twenty years, you won’t have your estate, you won’t have your money, and you will never, ever hear my voice again.”
I pulled my wedding ring off my finger—the heavy diamond ring that Patricia had chosen for me three years ago—and dropped it onto the hospital bed beside his restrained hand.
May you like
“Goodbye, Nicholas.”
I turned my back on him and walked out of the room, closing the heavy steel door behind me, blocking out the sound of his pathetic, desperate cries.
