The Marriage Clause ( Web Of Lies )

Mia POV The phone went off about 9:00 AM. I picked up the receiver and placed it to my ear. "Mia Lawrenson." I closed my eyes. The voice was already boring its way into my spine, driving me crazy. "Your grace period expired last week. We want the whole thing, plus interest, or we're taking you to court. I'm sick of calling you like this is some sort of charity drive. I run a f*****g business not a charity and you need to be respectful of that." I gripped the phone hard, holding it against my ear as if to muffle the blow. "Just give me two weeks," I begged. "I have a meeting with an investor today—" The phone hung up. I let the phone slip out of my hand slowly, glared at the blank screen, and swallowed hard. Was I shocked? Hell no. My father was the founder and CEO of Lawrenson & Co. Keyword: was. The company he had begun in the cracked pavement of Midtown was deteriorating rapidly now. And no one deigned to let me know, it seemed, while I was gone. Not my aide. Not the board. Not even Jason—the only person I had thought I could trust to hold things together. I scowled at the pile of documents on my desk. There were contracts, quarterly reports, and projections. Most of them are still sealed or worse—opened and ignored. I hadn't even really been gone two whole weeks. Two weeks. And now I was actually trudging through forms like a woman rummaging frantically among the wreckage after a building has collapsed. The desk itself was battle-scarred-looking with coffee stains, some sticky notes that were sliding off, pens with twisted caps on the tips, and small folders lying around everywhere. Even my computer was covered with scraps of receipts and unpaid bills like someone had just given up. I dropped to my knees, sweeping a few thick files aside, looking for the damn stapler. My hands were shaking, scanning papers so fast the words were colliding with each other. Balance sheets. Charts of revenue. None of it was making any sense. The numbers weren't balancing. I pulled out the nearest file—the one I had remembered working on before I left—and opened it. $48,000 was supposed to be in the campaign fund. The page read $4,325.71. I checked another. The R&D account was zeroed out. The advertising budget was halved. The emergency fund that I put away for days like this was literally zero. Just vanished. I blinked fast, my breath caught in my throat. No. This was a miscalculation. Something in the system. Someone typed something wrong. Or maybe a system update— My knee bumped against something under the table. A soft clink. I reached under and pulled out a picture frame. My hands froze. It was the photo I kept hidden behind the drawer, the one I didn’t like to look at because it hurt too much. I must’ve knocked it loose when I was digging through the chaos. Me at ten, sitting on my dad's shoulders, both of us grinning as if the world hadn't ended. My hair was in disarray. His face still contained the goofy kind of happiness that everyone loved him for. We had the last summer together, before he got sick. I pushed the picture closer. My fingers were around the edges as if it would get away from me if I didn't grasp it closely enough. My chest was tight. My eyesight became blurry with tears. A tremble shot through my fingers. He passed away a few weeks ago. Stage four pancreatic cancer. When he told anyone, it was already too late to fight it. Typical Dad—never wanting to be the burden. Never ever letting anyone catch him weak. He passed away gently, as he lived. I tilted forward on the desk, the frame against my chest like a shield I shouldn't have been clinging to. I was having trouble catching my breath. Like my lungs were constricting due to all the emotions I started to feel at once. But I didn't have time to freak out now. Not when everything was already on the verge of collapse around me. I set the frame down carefully, dried my face off tears on the back of my hand. Then I sat up straight, opened my laptop, and signed back into the financials. I scrolled through wire transfers, weekly statements, offshore business—anything that could possibly tell me what the hell was happening. It all led to disaster but there was no specific reason. I breathed deeply, leaned back in my chair, and stared out the window. Two NYPD cruisers pulled up below on the street hidden behind a delivery truck. I furrowed my brows in confusion. That was definitely new. But Midtown was always facing some new sort of drama. Maybe a demonstration of protest was taking place down the street or some intern tried to get into it with a staff member from HR at Cosby yet again. That happened just a few days ago. I turned away and looked back at the papers on my desk. That was when I saw a transaction of one of the inactive accounts. $73,000. Withdrawn. Destination: One of those Cayman Island accounts. The name on the withdrawal was a foreign name. Jason would probably know because I had left him in charge. I picked up my phone and called but there was no answer. I called again but it went right into voicemail. The third time was the same thing. "Come on, answer…" I muttered, pacing behind my desk. I sat down again, fuming, slapping the desk hard enough that pens rolled over the edge. And then my office phone started ringing. It was an unknown number. "Hello?" "Miss Lawrenson?" The voice was sharp. "This is Detective Lawson with the NYPD Financial Crimes Division. We have some questions about you and Hartley & Co." My stomach dropped. "For what?" I asked, but my voice wasn't my own. Silence on the other end was short but it was enough to make my heart pound. "Fraud investigation." "I'm sorry what?" "We suggest you come down to the station voluntarily," he went on. "Before we have to come up here." Up here. My eyes darted back to the window. The cruisers remained parked out front. Only now, one of the officers was looking directly at my building. They weren't just in the neighbourhood. They were here for me.