Chapter 2 - We Found It
I read the message twice.
Mason saw my face change.
“What?” he asked quietly.
I turned the screen toward him.
His jaw tightened.
For six months, someone had been trying to access the trust my father left behind. The attempts were careful. Different banks. Different devices. Different names. Nothing large enough to trigger public attention, but enough to make the financial institution’s fraud team call me twice.
I had assumed Sienna was begging for money because she was broke.
Now I wondered if she already believed the money belonged to her.
My mother snapped her fingers in front of me.
“Are you listening?”
“No.”
That answer seemed to insult her more than anything else.
She reached for my phone.
Mason stepped between us.
He did not touch her.
He did not raise his voice.
He simply said, “Don’t.”
Mom stared up at him.
“You stay out of family business.”
Mason’s expression did not move.
“I intend to.”
She gave a short laugh. “Good.”
Then he added, “But assaulting my fiancée in a room full of witnesses is not family business anymore.”
The color drained from her face.
Sienna put down her champagne.
“Assault?” she said. “Oh my God. She’s her mother.”
Colonel Ramirez stepped closer.
“That does not make it legal.”
My mother finally looked around the room.
For the first time, she noticed the uniforms.
Not the ceremonial uniforms she had been admiring all evening.
The faces.
The posture.
The silence.
She looked back at me.
“What is this?”
I slipped my phone into my bag.
“My engagement party.”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“I’m not.”
A man in a dark suit approached from the edge of the room. Special Agent Daniel Hsu, Army Criminal Investigation Division. I knew him from an investigation two years earlier. My mother knew him only as another guest.
He stopped beside me.
“Lieutenant Colonel Bennett,” he said, “may I speak with you privately?”
My mother blinked.
Sienna’s mouth opened.
Nobody moved.
Agent Hsu’s eyes flicked toward them, then back to me.
“Now would be best.”
I nodded.
Mom grabbed my elbow.
“Lieutenant colonel?”
I slowly removed her hand.
“That’s not important right now.”
“It’s extremely important!”
Sienna looked from me to Mason. “You’re in the Army?”
I said nothing.
My mother’s confusion turned to outrage.
“You lied to us.”
“I protected information you were never entitled to.”
“From your own mother?”
“Yes.”
Her face changed.
Not hurt.
Calculating.
It happened so quickly most people would have missed it.
I didn’t.
She looked at Sienna.
Sienna looked away.
That tiny movement told me more than any confession could have.
I followed Agent Hsu into a private conference room behind the ballroom. Mason came with us.
The door closed.
Hsu placed a thin evidence folder on the table.
“We identified the source of the latest trust-access attempt,” he said.
“Who?” I asked.
He opened the folder.
On top was a scan of a notarized authorization form.
My name was printed at the bottom.
And beneath it was a signature that looked almost exactly like mine.
Almost.
Mason leaned closer.
“That’s forged.”
“I know,” I said.
Hsu nodded.
“The form was uploaded forty-eight hours ago from an IP address registered to your mother’s house.”
My stomach went cold.
Then he turned the page.
There was a second document.
May you like
A death certificate.
Mine.
