Before she reached the exit, her phone buzzed in her hand.

She stopped, looking down at the screen.

Her face went pale, the anger instantly draining from her expression.

Claire stared at her phone, her fingers motionless over the screen.

The pale light from the display reflected in her wide, dark eyes.

She did not speak.

“Is there a problem, Mrs. Whitaker?” Arthur Vance asked, leaning toward her.

Claire did not answer her lawyer.

She slowly raised her head and looked at my father.

The anger on her face had turned into something desperate and cold.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

My father did not flinch.

He sat perfectly still in his high-backed leather chair, his hands clasped on the polished mahogany table.

“I simply notified the bank of the pending litigation,” my father said.

His voice was calm and steady, the voice of the CEO he had always been, not the simple handyman she had dismissed.

“They have frozen the joint accounts, Claire,” he added.

“You can’t do that,” she said, her voice rising. “Those are my accounts too.”

“Not anymore,” my father said.