Scott POV
The divorce papers landed in his inbox at 6:47 AM. It wasn't a draft. It was filed, stamped, and had a case number.
Thorne and Associates worked before sunrise. That meant his father called them before midnight, before Scott even stopped trying to call Audrey.
He put his phone face down on the kitchen counter and looked at the penthouse. The rose petals were in the trash. The champagne was still on the counter.
No one had touched anything. The apartment looked like a crime scene after the police had left.
He picked up his phone and checked his call log. A call at 7:58 PM last night, which he told Daniel was from his father, showed his father's number.
It looked normal, official, and lasted eleven minutes. He didn't remember that call.
He called his father's direct line. James answered right away. "It's done. Thorne filed this morning."
"I didn't say to do that."
"You didn't need to. The prenup handles everything. She gets the money and leaves without trouble."
Scott spoke calmly. "I want them to take back the filing."
A short, planned pause. "Scott."
"Take it back. Today."
"That's not how this works." His father's voice got lower. That meant the talk was over for James. "The board meeting is in three weeks.
This stops now, quietly, and you move on. Elena will be quiet about it."
"I don't care what Elena will do."
"You should." Another pause. "She already called Hargrove's lawyers this morning. A polite call, she said. Reminding them about your private relationship."
The threat was clear and effective. Elena was not just someone his father was controlling. She was a tool, and his father was using her.
He hung up. Daniel arrived at 7:30. The front desk let him in without Scott buzzing him up. Scott noticed this. Daniel had access. He always had access.
Scott poured two coffees and waited for Daniel to sit down before speaking.
"The call at 7:58 last night," Scott said. "My father's number. Eleven minutes. What do you remember about dinner?"
Daniel held his mug. "You got a call. You said it was your father. You went outside to take it."
"How long was I out there?"
"Four, maybe five minutes."
"The log says eleven."
Daniel looked at the mug.
"The number is my father's," Scott went on. "But he didn't call me last night. I called him after Audrey left. That was our first talk." He watched Daniel.
"This means someone used his number. Or the log was changed."
"You can't change a phone company's log."
"No. But you can send a call through a registered number if you can get into the account." He put his coffee down.
"Someone made a call from my father's office line and sent it to my cell.
Someone who could get into the Williams Enterprises phone system."
Daniel was quiet for too long.
"What do you know?" Scott asked.
"Nothing I can prove."
"Daniel."
"I saw Elena at the bar." He spoke slowly, as he had thought about it. "Before you got the call. I didn't think it was important. She was across the room. I didn't see her go near your drink."
"But you think she did."
"I think you had one drink and weren't acting normal twenty minutes later. I should have seen it faster." He looked at Scott.
"I should have called you a cab instead of letting you walk out alone."
Scott stood and went to the window. The city moved below, not caring.
"I need the restaurant's security video."
"I already called. The manager says the system stopped working between 7 and 9 PM. A forty-minute gap."
A planned gap. Not by chance.
"Get me Audrey's lawyer's name."
"Rachel Holt. She filed a request to stop the divorce at four this morning." Daniel paused. "The judge for your father's filing is Warren Cassidy."
Scott turned. "Cassidy went to college with my father."
"Yes."
So the request would be turned down. The divorce would go forward. And Audrey, wherever she was, would be fighting a system set up against her, alone.
He walked to his desk and opened his laptop. He found the company's internal phone list and then the server records.
He wasn't supposed to have the login details, but he used them anyway.
His father's phone records showed one call last night. It lasted eleven minutes. It went through a phone service registered to a fake company.
He took a picture of the screen.
Then he looked at the building's security camera footage.
This was just for the penthouse floor, separate from the restaurant's system and run by the Williams property team.
The video from the penthouse elevator lobby was all there.
Elena arrived at 8:34 PM. The front desk had not let her in. She had used a key card for a guest account opened three weeks ago, under the name of a Williams.
An enterprise contractor who didn't exist.
She had a key. Someone had given it to her.
He took a picture of that, too.
His phone rang. It was from Rachel Holt's office.
He answered. "Mr. Williams." Her voice was formal and cold. "My client wants me to tell you that she knows about the Cassidy case.
She has already told the court there's a conflict of interest.
She has also sent another document to three different people. What's in it will become public if the current case doesn't stop."
"What document?"
"I can't say what it is. My client just wanted you to know it's real." There was a pause.
"She also wanted me to tell you directly that she isn't running. She isn't hiding. And she won't be controlled."
The call ended.
Scott stood still.
Audrey had made four moves before morning. The court order, the conflict motion, the document, and now this call.
It was timed exactly to happen after he had found the security video. After he had started to look.
She knew he would start looking.
His laptop was still open. The security picture was still on screen. He sent both images to a private email account, one not linked to him at all, then he cleared the browser.
He picked up his phone and called a number he hadn't used in two years. It was for a private investigator, one his father didn't know about, and Daniel had never met.
The phone rang three times, then someone answered.
"I need everything you can find on Elena Chase from the last sixty days," Scott said. "Her money, calls, where she went, travel. All of it."
"When do you need it?"
"Yesterday."
He hung up and looked at the penthouse one last time. The champagne. The empty hall. The life that had been there just twelve hours ago.
His father had made a move first. Elena had made a move first. Audrey had made a move first.
He was done just reacting.
His laptop made a sound. It was an email from an unknown address, with no subject or message. It had one picture attached.
The picture was three weeks old and showed Elena Chase meeting with James Williams at a restaurant Scott knew was his father's favorite for lunch.
They weren't eating. Papers were open on the table between them.
Someone had sent this to him on purpose. Someone who had been waiting for him to start asking questions.
His phone rang again. It was the investigator, calling back just two minutes after their last talk.
"Before I do anything," the man said, "you should know I was contacted last month.
Someone offered me money to find out things about your wife. I said no. I thought you should know who came to me first."
Scott squeezed the phone tighter. "Who contacted you?"
There was a pause. Then a name that made him feel like the floor moved under him.