PART 2

I set the towel down on the counter without a word.

Then I turned and walked upstairs.

Julian called after me.

"Where do you think you're going?"

I didn't answer.

I heard Victoria say behind me, "Let her sulk.

She'll come back down."

They were both wrong.

I pulled my suitcase from under the bed and opened the nightstand drawer.

My passport.

The marriage certificate.

The envelope from my aunt with $2,500 in cash still folded inside.

And the cashier's check — $45,000 — that I had quietly moved into my own name three days before the wedding.

I had not planned to use any of it this way.

But something in me had known.

I was zipping the suitcase when the bedroom door swung open.

Julian stood in the frame, his expression shifting from irritation to something colder when he saw what was in my hands.

"What is that?" he said slowly.

"My things," I said.

He stepped forward.

"That check.

That's from the joint account.

You can't —"

"It was never joint," I said.

"Read the name on it."

His face went white.

Then Victoria appeared behind him in the hallway.

She looked at the suitcase.

She looked at the envelope.

And for the first time that morning, her smile disappeared completely.

"Julian," she said quietly.

"Call your father.

Right now."

---

What did Victoria's father know — and why did she panic the moment she saw that check?

The truth goes much deeper than Elena realized.

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