Now, with the veil of love violently ripped from my eyes, the financial anomalies lit up my screen like neon signs.
There it was. Transfer after transfer to a shell LLC I didn’t recognize. I traced the LLC’s registration on the state database. The registered agent? Valerie Morales. My sister.
I kept digging. I found payments to private concierge maternity clinics. I found receipts for a luxury UPPAbaby stroller, imported nursery furniture, and massive grocery delivery bills sent to an address in Bellevue—one of the most expensive zip codes in the state.
But the final nail in the coffin, the discovery that shifted my mindset from a scorned wife seeking a divorce to an auditor executing a financial execution, was the lease agreement. I hacked into Derek’s secondary email—he used the same password for everything since college, the idiot—and found the PDF. It was a two-year lease for a luxury penthouse in Bellevue. The monthly rent was staggering. But what made my blood turn to absolute ice was the signature at the bottom of the guarantor page.
It was my signature.
Derek hadn’t just cheated on me with my sister and fathered her child. He hadn’t just conspired with my mother to use me as a walking ATM. He had committed felony identity theft and financial fraud to guarantee their luxury lifestyle, tying my credit and my assets to their secret love nest.
I stared at the glowing screen until the numbers stopped swimming. Then, I downloaded everything. Screenshots. Bank movements. IP logs. PDF leases. Emails. Every single file went into a highly encrypted folder named, simply: EVIDENCE.
Then, I picked up my phone and called the one person on earth scarier than me.
“Lauren,” I said when she picked up on the second ring.
