CHAPTER 2: More Trouble
1381 Words
Reyna.
Simone Vega has been my lawyer for three years, but my friend for longer. We met in culinary school, she dropped out after one semester, said she loved food but hated sweating, and went to law school instead. She's the only person in Austin who knows my full name. Both of them.
She was already awake when I called. I could hear ice clinking in a glass.
"Talk to me," she said.
"Luca Harrington called me tonight."
A pause. "He called me too. About two hours ago."
"What did he say?"
"That Dave has been in a business deal with Gerald Harrington for fourteen months. Real estate development on the east side. Luca says the finances don't add up and his father has been stalling an audit." She paused. "He also said Dave used our joint account as collateral on a secondary loan. Without your signature."
The kitchen went cold.
"That's forgery," I said.
"That's a felony," Simone corrected. "Which is why I've been ready for six months. I saw the account activity. I was waiting for you."
I sat down on the kitchen floor, back against the island. My legs just stopped working for a second.
"He married me for money he thought I had," I said.
"I think he married you because he thought you were connected. Your father's name opens doors even when you're not using it. Someone talked." She let that land. "The question is who told Dave who you really are."
We were quiet for a moment.
"The car outside," I said. "Still there."
"I know. I put it there. It's my brother. I asked him to sit on your street after Harrington called me." A beat. "Get some sleep. We're meeting Luca Harrington at nine tomorrow. And Reyna, don't call Dave back. Let him sweat."
I sure was going to do that.
I didn't sleep.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about four years spent building a life small enough to hide in.
My father, Edmund Castillo, is not a restaurant owner from San Antonio. He built a private equity firm in the nineties and turned it into something that touches everything — hotels, logistics, tech infrastructure, a media company he never discusses publicly. He has a lawyer on retainer who has a lawyer on retainer.
I am his only child.
I left at twenty-four. Not loudly, no slammed doors, no speeches. I stopped showing up to things I was supposed to attend. Stopped taking the car he sent. Stopped sitting at dinners where men twice my age looked at me like something to be acquired. I transferred my accounts, took my mother's maiden name, and enrolled in culinary school as Reyna Castillo.
My father let me go because I asked him to, and because I promised two things: I would not embarrass the family name, and I would call every first Sunday of the month.
I kept both promises. He never asked where I lived. I never told him.
Dave didn't know any of this when we met. I was sure of that then. He came into my restaurant on a Tuesday, left a note with the check asking if the chef would have a drink with him.
I said yes because he had kind eyes and I was lonely.
I stopped being careful.
The meeting was at Simone's office. That was non-negotiable, she doesn't do home-field disadvantage.
Luca Harrington was already there when we arrived, standing by the window with a coffee he hadn't touched. Younger than I expected. Dark hair, a face more interesting than handsome. Dressed simply for a man whose family name was on half the hotel doors in Texas. He looked like someone who had nothing to prove, which in my experience meant either he didn't, or he was very good at hiding how much he did.
He turned when we walked in. His eyes went straight to me.
"Ms. Castillo."
"Mr. Harrington." I sat without shaking his hand. "You said last night that what happened may not be a coincidence. Explain that."
He sat. Folded his hands. "Fourteen months ago, my father entered a development partnership with Dave's firm. The terms were unusual, Gerald Harrington doesn't take on partners. Three months in, I started looking at the books. The capital Dave brought to the table didn't come from his firm's operating accounts."
"Where did it come from?" Simone asked.
"A shell company registered in Delaware. It took me four months to trace." He looked at me. "The shell was funded through transfers originating from a private equity firm."
The room went quiet.
"My father's firm," I said.
"Yes."
I felt Simone go still beside me.
"Someone used my father's infrastructure to fund my husband's deal," I said slowly. "Either with my father's knowledge, or without it."
"Correct. And if it was without his knowledge—"
"Someone inside his firm is moving money without authorization." I held his gaze. "Why come to me? Why not go to my father directly?"
"Because I don't know who to trust in his circle." He paused. "And because I believe Dave knew who you were when he married you. I think he was placed."
That word sat in the room like smoke.
"You think my marriage was arranged," I said.
"I think it's possible."
I thought about a Tuesday night. Kind eyes. A note left with the check.
"The colleague whose shift I covered last night," I said. "He called me two hours before with a twisted ankle."
Simone looked at me. "What about him?"
"Has he been in that hotel before?" I asked Luca.
He pulled out his phone and turned it toward me.
A photo. My colleague Jordan, pastry section, twenty-six years old, shaking hands with a man in the hotel lobby.
The man was Dave.
Two weeks ago.
I sat back. Something that had been cracking since midnight split all the way through.
"He staged it," I said. "He wanted me to walk in on them. On his terms, in a place he controlled." I looked at Luca. "Why? If he wanted out, why not just leave?"
"Because a divorce you file in shock," Simone said quietly, "without a prenuptial agreement, in a community property state—"
"Gives him access to my assets." I finished. "He thought I'd react fast and settle fast."
"He didn't know you had a lawyer waiting," Simone said.
"No." I looked at my hands. Flour was still under my thumbnail from last night. "He didn't."
Luca watched me. "There's one more thing."
"Of course."
"Your father called my father this morning. Gerald won't tell me what was said, but he's been locked in his office for two hours and canceled everything on his calendar." A pause. "I think Edmund Castillo knows you're in Austin."
My phone buzzed on the table.
Unknown number. Texas area code.
One message.
“I know you built something beautiful, Reyna. I'm proud of you. But it's time to come home. We need to talk about your husband.” — Dad
The three of us stared at the screen.
Luca said quietly, "When did you last speak to him?"
"Last Sunday. Like always. He seemed completely normal."
Which meant either my father was a very good actor, or he'd learned everything in the last twelve hours and hadn't panicked once.
Neither option felt safe.
Simone put her hand over mine. "What do you want to do?"
I looked at the message. At Luca. At the Austin morning bright through the window behind him.
"I want to find out who moved that money," I said. "And I want to know exactly how my husband ended up connected to my father's firm before I walk into a room with either of them."
"That could get complicated," Luca said.
"I work with fire every day." I picked up my bag and stood. "I'll be in touch."
I walked out into the morning with my father's message still glowing on my screen.
I didn't call him back.
Not yet.
Because if my father had been watching me this whole time, then nothing about the last four years was what I believed it was.
And I was done being the last person to understand the game being played around me.
- Writer
