The world stopped. The hum of the AC vanished. My blood ran cold, a physical sensation like ice water being poured down my spine.
“Excuse me?” I whispered.
“You heard me,” she snapped, the laughter vanishing, replaced by a sudden, jagged cruelty. “You hid this money from us. You pretend to be so poor, with your little Tupperware lunches and your old car, but you had a limit of a hundred thousand dollars sitting there. It’s your punishment, you cheap girl. Family money is family money. Olivia deserves to live. We deserve to enjoy life.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at it as if it had turned into a snake. I tapped the banking app with a trembling finger.
Login…
Authenticating…
And there it was. A wall of red.
Pending: ALO HAWAII AIRLINES – $12,400
Pending: ROYAL HAWAIIAN RESORT – $24,000
Pending: CARTIER HONOLULU – $15,600
Pending: NOBU WAIKIKI – $3,200
Dozens of them. A hemorrhage of wealth. My down payment for a condo. My safety net. My fortress. Gone in swipe after swipe.
“Are you there?” my mother taunted. “Don’t be dramatic. You can pay it off. You have that fancy job. Consider it… retroactive rent for raising you.”
My hands were shaking so hard I had to press my palm flat against the desk to stabilize it. But when I spoke, my voice was unrecognizable. It wasn’t the voice of a daughter. It was the voice of a senior analyst discussing a hostile takeover.
“You committed fraud,” I said.
“Oh, stop it,” she scoffed. “We’re authorized users. You gave us permission nine years ago. We can spend whatever we want. And we did. Don’t regret it later, Rachel. Don’t you dare try to ruin your sister’s trip.”
“I’m not going to ruin her trip,” I said, my eyes fixing on the gray horizon of the lake. “I’m going to ruin her life.”
I hung up.
For ten minutes, I didn’t move. I sat in my ergonomic chair, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, forcing my heart rate to decelerate.
Panic is a luxury I couldn’t afford. Panic is for amateurs. In my line of work, when a catastrophic loss occurs, you don’t cry. You audit.
I picked up the phone again. Not to call my parents back, but to dial a number I had memorized for client crises.
David Thorne. He was the head of corporate litigation for my firm, a man who viewed human emotion as an inefficiency in the legal process.
“Thorne,” he answered on the first ring.
“David, it’s Rachel Monroe. I have a situation. A localized breach of personal assets involving unauthorized use by family members. The exposure is ninety-five thousand.”
