Chapter 2 - The Envelope on My DeskDesmond asked one thing of me, and only one thing.
"Don't investigate. Don't spy. Just keep absolute silence about my physical progress."
Only his physical therapist, a specialist named Priya, his neurologist, and his lead corporate attorney knew the true scope of his recovery. He was nowhere near walking on his own — some days his nerve response came back strong, other days it left him weak and shaking. But he'd regained enough real feedback to hold onto genuine hope for the first time since the crash.
"Why hide it from your own mother and brother?" I asked softly one evening, adjusting his pillows.
Desmond stared at the locked door. "Because since my accident, too many people have gotten very comfortable making multi-million-dollar decisions with my name attached to them."
Before the crash, Desmond had flagged serious accounting irregularities across three major medical procurement contracts at his firm — offshore vendors that had appeared out of nowhere, wildly inflated consulting fees, unvetted middlemen. The total discrepancy ran past fifteen million dollars.
Three days before the accident, he'd personally driven out to inspect an unannounced distribution warehouse. The crash happened on his way back into the city.
He woke up in intensive care. During his months in the hospital, Foster stepped in to run Ashworth Enterprises on a temporary basis. And several physical files Desmond distinctly remembered keeping in his own briefcase had quietly disappeared.
"I'm not saying my brother engineered the crash," he clarified, jaw tight. "I'm saying somebody took full advantage of me being unable to walk back into that boardroom."
I understood then why he was playing the long game from a wheelchair, watching to see who revealed themselves.
Four days later, the snake pit rattled for the first time.
Camille came into my quarters one afternoon, shut the door behind her, and set a thick manila envelope on my desk.
"There's five thousand dollars in cash in there," she said, with a smile that had clearly been practiced in a mirror.
I didn't touch it. "What's this for?"
"Whenever Desmond's attorney or auditors come by the house, you tell me immediately," she said, leaning against the doorframe like she owned the room. "If you overhear anything about company restructuring, you report it straight to Foster and me."
I slid the envelope back across the desk. "I'm paid to provide clinical care for your brother-in-law, Mrs. Ashworth. Not to sell out his privacy."
Her smile evaporated into something colder. "You just got here, Renata. Don't mistake domestic work for leverage."
"It's exactly because it's my job that I know where my boundaries are," I said, flat and even.
That evening I told Desmond everything. It was the first time I saw genuine, cold fury cross his face.
A few days later, his lead counsel, a man named Whitfield Reyes, arrived for a private briefing in Desmond's quarters. They spent hours going through encrypted logs, proxy sign-offs, and corporate authorizations executed while Desmond had been sedated in the ICU.
I stayed out of it, sterilizing equipment in the next room, until Whitfield asked me to help reposition Desmond. As I stepped over to gather some discarded files off the desk, a loose printed page slid to the floor.
I knelt to pick it up. The bold header caught my eye before I could stop reading it: Internal Audit — Authorized Personnel Tied to Disputed Procurement Accounts.
My eyes ran down the short list of names, and my breath caught in my throat.
Marcus Cole.
My ex-husband.
"Renata?" Desmond asked, noticing me go rigid.
I handed the page to Whitfield, my fingers not quite steady. "Marcus works at Ashworth Enterprises."
Desmond's dark eyebrows knit together. "Your ex-husband?"
"Associate Director of Corporate Finance," I whispered.
Whitfield and Desmond traded a grim, calculating look, and I felt the floor drop out from under me.
The very man who'd sneered that I was "cooped up at home" and didn't understand his professional world was now sitting inside an active corporate fraud investigation, launched by the CEO whose house I currently lived in.
That night my phone rang. Marcus.
I let it ring out. It rang again a minute later. Then a text landed on the screen. Renata, I don't know what lies they're feeding you in that house, but stay out of corporate matters you don't understand.
I stared at the screen in disbelief. I'd never told Marcus or Dorothea where I'd taken a job. Desmond hadn't spoken to him either.
A second text came through. Listen to me for once. Get away from Desmond Ashworth before this whole legal mess drags you down with it.
I looked toward Desmond's closed bedroom door, and a chilling realization settled over me.
Marcus wasn't worried about my safety.
May you like
He was terrified of what I might find.
And somebody inside that estate had already tipped him off that I was living under this roof.
