Chapter 5 - My Signature
I forgot how to breathe.
“What do you mean it was signed with my name?”
Rebecca’s voice remained calm.
“Exactly what I said.”
“I didn’t send anything.”
“I suspected that.”
“How?”
“Because you called me two months ago and specifically instructed me that none of your premarital assets were to be transferred after the wedding without an in-person meeting.”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered that conversation.
My father had taught me to treat marriage as both a romantic commitment and a legal contract.
Julian had mocked him for it.
“Your dad thinks everyone is after your money,” he had joked.
At the time, I had defended Julian.
Now the memory made me sick.
“What did the email say?”
“That you had changed your mind and wanted information on transferring your brokerage account and your ownership interest in your parents’ company into a newly created marital trust.”
I sat completely still.
Julian knew about my brokerage account.
He also knew I owned twelve percent of my father’s logistics company.
It wasn’t billionaire money.
But it was enough to make me financially independent.
The shares had been gifted to me years before I met Julian.
Their estimated value was a little over $1.8 million.
“You didn’t do anything, right?”
“Of course not.”
Rebecca sounded offended by the idea.
“I called you.”
“My phone was off during the wedding.”
“Exactly.”
“So whoever sent it knew that.”
“Yes.”
A chill moved over my skin.
“Can you forward it?”
“Already did.”
I opened my email.
There it was.
The sender’s address looked almost identical to mine.
One letter had been replaced.
The message was formal.
Polite.
Convincing.
At the bottom was a scanned signature.
My signature.
A very good copy.
My hands began to tremble.
“Rebecca.”
“I’m here.”
“I signed dozens of wedding documents yesterday.”
“I know.”
“Vendor forms.”
“I know.”
“Hotel receipts.”
“Elena.”
“What if one of them—”
“Stop.”
Her voice became firmer.
“Do not confront Julian about this.”
I stared through the windshield.
“Why?”
“Because this may have moved beyond marital manipulation into attempted financial fraud.”
The words landed like stones.
Attempted financial fraud.
Fourteen hours.
That was all it had taken for my fairy-tale marriage to become something I might eventually explain to detectives.
“Where are you?”
“Gas station off Highway 9.”
“Go somewhere secure.”
“I was going to a hotel.”
“Not the honeymoon hotel.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
She gave me the address of a boutique hotel near her office.
“Check in under your maiden name if possible.”
“My legal name hasn’t changed yet.”
“Even better.”
“And then?”
“I’ll meet you in forty-five minutes.”
I looked down at the marriage certificate on the passenger seat.
“What about an annulment?”
“We’ll discuss it.”
“Rebecca.”
“Yes?”
“Can I get out of this?”
Her answer came without hesitation.
“Yes.”
For the first time that morning, my lungs opened.
Then she added something that closed them again.
“But I think we need to figure out what Julian believed he was going to get by marrying you.”
I ended the call.
A second later, my phone rang again.
Julian.
I declined it.
He called again.
Declined.
Again.
Then a text appeared.
Come home before you make this worse.
Another followed.
Mom is willing to forgive you.
I stared at it in disbelief.
Then a third message arrived.
This one changed everything.
And don’t do anything stupid with that $45,000. We already committed it.
Committed it.
Not planned to use it.
Not hoped to discuss it.
Committed it.
I took a screenshot.
Then I sent it directly to Rebecca.
Her reply arrived almost immediately.
Do not respond.
May you like
Thirty seconds later, another message came.
We have them.
