Chapter 7 - Bridget Opens the Wrong Door
Bridget came to see me two days later.
Unlike Gavin, she did not ask permission.
She marched through the Crestview lobby demanding to speak with me until security threatened to remove her.
Elaine agreed to let me meet her only because Nathan wanted to hear what she would say.
We used a conference room with recording equipment already running.
Bridget threw her handbag onto the table.
“You’ve ruined everything.”
I sat across from her.
“Good morning.”
“My husband is being investigated.”
“Then he should hire a lawyer.”
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
She leaned toward me.
“You’ve always hated Mason.”
“That’s not true.”
“You never thought he deserved his position.”
“I thought a CFO should be supervised.”
“You were jealous because Gavin stopped listening to you.”
That was closer to the truth.
But not in the way Bridget imagined.
“Why are you here?”
“I want the recordings.”
“No.”
“They were made illegally.”
“Nathan disagrees.”
Bridget’s face flushed.
“You tricked us.”
“You came into my home, threatened me with forty million dollars in debt, and described hidden assets.”
“You signed the agreement.”
“There seems to be a lot of confidence in my signature.”
“You can’t take it back because you regret it.”
“I’m not trying to take it back because I regret it.”
I looked directly at her.
“I’m challenging it because you threatened me into signing while concealing marital assets.”
Bridget stood.
Then she made the mistake Nathan had predicted.
“You have no idea what counts as marital property.”
I stayed silent.
She continued.
“Most of Gavin’s assets aren’t even his anymore.”
Nathan, watching from an adjacent room, would be taking notes.
Bridget did not know he was there.
“What do you mean?”
I asked.
She smiled.
“I mean you married a man worth hundreds of millions and still found a way to leave with nothing.”
“How?”
“Because by the time you understand where everything went, it’ll belong to someone else.”
I let three seconds pass.
“Who?”
Bridget smiled wider.
“Mason made sure of it.”
That sentence destroyed whatever remained of her restraint.
She started talking.
Trust structures.
Management entities.
Transferred stock.
Properties held by companies I had never heard of.
Bridget believed she was humiliating me.
What she was actually doing was supplying Nathan with a roadmap.
After she left, he entered the room holding a legal pad filled with notes.
“You didn’t have to push her.”
“I know.”
“She practically completed our discovery request.”
Elaine entered behind him.
Her expression was grim.
“We have another problem.”
She placed a printed chart on the table.
Mason had moved approximately $61 million through four related entities over eighteen months.
Some transfers were explained.
Others were not.
The largest recipient was Northline Holdings.
I recognized the name.
Northline Holdings owned the house Gavin had forced me to leave.
Nathan saw my expression.
“What?”
I pointed at the page.
“That company owns our home.”
Elaine looked at him.
Nathan looked at me.
Then he asked the obvious question.
“Who owns Northline Holdings?”
Elaine turned the page.
May you like
The answer was worse than any of us expected.
Charlotte Gable.
