Chapter 5 - THE PRIVATE RECKONING
The fallout from the board meeting was swift and brutal.
By Tuesday afternoon, news of Alistair’s suspension hit the national financial networks. Apex Holdings stock plummeted by fifty-two percent in less than three hours. Federal agents from the Department of Justice were seen entering the State Street offices with cardboard boxes, executing search warrants for corporate servers.
Meanwhile, I had moved Kora into a beautiful, sunlit brownstone in Cambridge that Marcus Vance had secured for us through a private trust. It was quiet, safe, and surrounded by a small garden where Kora could play without the suffocating presence of Eleanor Bowmont’s rules.
At 4:00 PM, a sleek silver sedan pulled up to the curb.
I watched from the bay window as Sabrina Wells stepped out of the car. She wasn't wearing her usual crisp nurse's uniform or the plain black dresses Eleanor forced her to wear. She was dressed in simple jeans and a cardigan, looking smaller, exhausted, and deeply weathered.
She walked up the stone steps and rang the bell.
I opened the door, holding a cup of tea. I didn't invite her in, but I didn't shut the door either.
"Genevieve," Sabrina said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes were red and swollen. "Please... I just need ten minutes."
I looked at her for a long moment. This was the woman who had lived in my home for eight years. The woman who had quietly watched me stay up all night with feverish infants, knowing all along that those children were born from her womb and my husband's betrayal.
"Step inside," I said, turning back into the hallway.
Sabrina walked into the sunlit living room, her hands shaking so badly she had to clasp them together. She looked around at the warm, colorful art hanging on the walls—a stark contrast to the dark, oppressive oil paintings of the Bowmont estate.
"Where is Kora?" Sabrina asked softly.
"She’s upstairs with her nanny," I replied, taking a seat on the sofa. "Why are you here, Sabrina? The court issued a mutual restraining order between our legal teams."
Sabrina dropped to her knees right there on the rug.
I didn't move. I didn't reach out to comfort her.
"I’m sorry," Sabrina sobbed, covering her face with her trembling hands. "I am so, so sorry, Genevieve. You have every right to hate me. You have every right to want me in prison."
"Why did you do it?" I asked, my voice flat and steady. "For ten years, you stood in my kitchen. You watched me cry when I lost my baby. You watched me struggle to raise three boys while Alistair spent his nights at the office or traveling. How could you sit there and watch me raise your children while letting Eleanor treat me like a servant?"
Sabrina looked up, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks.
"I didn't have a choice at the beginning," she whimpered. "I was twenty-four when I started working for Eleanor. I had two hundred thousand dollars in medical debt from my mother’s cancer treatment. Eleanor found out. She told me she would pay off every cent of my debt if I became a private surrogate for Alistair."
"A surrogate?" I challenged. "You weren't just a surrogate, Sabrina. You had three children with him over a six-year period. You became his secret second wife."
"Eleanor promised me that once Sterling was born, she would give me a massive settlement and I could leave," Sabrina pleaded, her voice cracking. "But then she forced me to stay as her private nurse so she could monitor me. She told me if I ever told you the truth, or tried to leave with the boys, she would use Alistair’s legal team to ruin my life and take the children away forever!"
"And the money?" I asked, pointing toward the window. "The fourteen million dollars in the shell accounts?"
"I never touched a single dollar of that money!" Sabrina cried out, pulling a set of bank statements from her purse and slamming them onto the table. "Alistair put those accounts in my name so he could hide his money from the IRS and from you! I was just a ghost on paper! He threatened to report me for tax evasion if I didn't sign the transfer documents!"
I looked down at the bank statements. The electronic signatures were indeed generated through Alistair’s IP address at Apex headquarters.
"Sabrina," I said softly, looking at her broken state. "You might have been Eleanor’s victim at twenty-four. But at thirty-four, you became her weapon. You let those boys call me 'Mom' while knowing every hug was built on a lie."
"I loved those boys," she wept. "And I saw how much you loved them. You were a better mother to them than I ever could have been under Eleanor's thumb. That's why I didn't stop it... because I knew as long as you were their mother, they were safe from Eleanor’s sickness."
"They aren't safe anymore," I reminded her coldly. "Alistair is facing federal fraud charges. Eleanor is trying to gain custody of the boys to preserve her social standing. What are you going to do?"
Sabrina stood up, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. A sudden, fierce light appeared in her eyes—the desperate strength of a mother who had finally reached her breaking point.
"I’m going to the federal prosecutor tomorrow morning," Sabrina stated firmly. "I’m going to give them every text message, every email, and every contract Eleanor and Alistair forced me to sign. I don't care if I go to prison, Genevieve. But I am not letting Eleanor Bowmont destroy Sterling, Brooks, and Pierce."
I looked at her for a long, silent moment. For the first time in eight years, I didn't see Eleanor’s quiet assistant. I saw a woman who was finally ready to burn down the kingdom that had imprisoned us both.
"My lawyer, Marcus Vance, will go with you," I said softly. "Don't do it alone."
May you like
Sabrina stared at me, fresh tears pooling in her eyes. "Why are you helping me?"
"I'm not doing it for you, Sabrina," I said, turning toward the stairs where I could hear Kora’s sweet laughter echoing down the hallway. "I'm doing it for the boys."
