I Served My Country for Three Years—He Spent My Reward on Her

Chapter 5

An uproar swept through the hall.

"What did she say? She actually dared to question Mr. Astor?"

"She's insane. That woman has completely lost her mind!"

The livestream comments raced past.

A: [She has no idea who she's challenging.]

B: [She's asking for trouble.]

Leo snapped, "Fine! Let's see how long you can keep up the act."

Thoroughly enraged, Leo pulled a black card from his inner pocket and slammed it onto the representative's tray.

A lily of the valley motif from our wedding was embossed at the center of the card.

I shot to my feet as my blood ran cold. That card belonged to the joint account we had opened when we married.

It held the first real money I had made from my startup, my separate assets from before the marriage, what remained of his family's inheritance, the cash from every wedding gift we received, and the savings we had each added to our wish fund on every anniversary during the past 3 years.

When Leo knelt and slipped the wedding ring onto my finger, he told me that account was the foundation of our life together and that neither of us would ever touch it without the other's consent.

Now he was draining it to buy Tiffany a blue diamond.

Fury surged through me, and my fingernails dug into my palms.

I had put up with the insult of the free sample, the supplementary card, and the fortune he had poured into his mistress.

But he had crossed the line by raiding the account that held everything our marriage had begun with and everything we'd once hoped for.

That was the final insult.

Just 10 minutes later, the representative returned with a strained expression. His hand trembled as he gave the card back to Leo.

"Mr. Astor, this card has also been frozen."

"What?"

Leo's swagger vanished. Confusion gave way to shock, then to disbelieving rage.

He immediately pulled out his phone and called me repeatedly. I didn't answer.

Then he called the bank and got nowhere. With everyone watching, his face went from livid to deathly pale.

The representative's suspicious stare made Leo visibly uneasy.

Leo clenched his jaw. "My estate on the Seabrook Coast is worth 150 million dollars. The patents in Astor Capital's AI portfolio are worth another 200 million. I'll have my attorney bring the property deed and patent certificates here as collateral immediately."

Whatever restraint I had left snapped.

As if emptying our joint account weren't enough, he was now trying to mortgage the Seabrook Coast estate, my mother's legacy to me, and use my patents as collateral.

Astor Capital owned no artificial intelligence patents. Every technology Leo claimed belonged to his company was intellectual property from Grant Technologies that I had licensed to him free of charge.

'Leo, you have truly outdone yourself.'

Without hesitation, I pulled up the National Investigation Bureau's Financial Crimes Tip Line and entered the number. My thumb hovered over the Call button.

Beside me, the client relations manager looked up nervously.

"Ms. Grant, there isn't enough money in your account. There are only 50 million dollars in it."

"What?"

I spun toward my assistant.

That account had held my 300-million-dollar emergency reserve, every cent of it saved during 3 years of classified work that had landed me in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer more than once. Now only a fraction remained.

My elbow caught the bone china coffee cup and knocked it over. Coffee spread across the documents on the table, but I barely noticed. One question crowded out everything else.

'Where is the rest of the 300 million dollars?'

My assistant's face turned white. She leaned closer and lowered her voice.

"Ms. Grant, we missed this. During the 3 years you were away, Leo planted at least six people in the Finance Department. They accessed your private accounts several times under the pretext of quarterly audits. They must have transferred the money out in smaller amounts."

I clenched my fists until my nails cut into my palms.

For 3 full years, I had worked around the clock in the military lab. I had written code even on Christmas. Leo had taken every dollar I had saved.

A cold, steady rage settled over me, leaving my fingertips numb.

'Good. Whatever happens next is their own doing.'

I took a slow breath. The last of my hesitation disappeared.

"Investigate this immediately. Identify everyone who accessed my accounts during the past 3 years. I don't care who they are. The moment you find evidence, send it directly to my attorney."