I watched his face turn from pale to a dull, sickly grey.

“Brooke, answer me,” he pleaded.

“We had a plan.”

He listened again, his eyes rolling upward as if searching the high ceiling for an escape.

“What did they offer you?” he whispered.

The phone was loud enough that I could hear a faint, metallic voice coming through the speaker.

I stepped closer, my leather heels silent on the polished terrazzo.

“I had to protect myself, Victor,” Brooke’s voice said.

The line was clear despite the storm outside.

“The federal investigators were already looking at the signature cards,” she said.

“Evelyn Price showed me the wire transfers.”

Victor shook his head, a desperate, silent denial.

“You promised,” he said.

“We were going to start over in Madrid.”

A dry, humorless laugh came from the phone.

“With what?” Brooke asked.

“The board knows everything, Victor.”

“They know about the dummy corporations in Delaware.”

“They know you signed my name to the secondary accounts.”

Victor leaned against a concrete pillar, his strength seemingly leaving him.

“I did that for us,” he said.

“To keep you safe.”