Chapter 5 - THE SECOND TRAITOR
For the next forty-eight hours, I trusted almost nobody.
Not because everyone deserved suspicion.
Because betrayal changes the way your brain works.
A coworker pauses too long before answering?
Suspicious.
Someone closes a computer when you enter?
Suspicious.
A phone buzzes during a meeting?
Suspicious.
I hated it.
Solara had always felt like a family.
Now I walked through my own office wondering who had sold me.
Our cybersecurity company traced the supplier-list download.
The login belonged to Javier.
But the device belonged to Solara.
Marketing department.
Specifically, the laptop assigned to Denise Parker, our director of partnerships.
I had hired Denise five years earlier.
She had become one of my closest friends.
We celebrated birthdays together.
She attended Thanksgiving at my apartment.
She knew about Javier’s drinking.
She knew about Lydia’s insults.
More than once, Denise had told me, “You deserve better.”
Now I stood outside her office wondering whether she had been helping destroy me.
I entered.
She looked up.
“Hey. Did the retailer call back?”
“Yes.”
“Good?”
“No.”
Her smile disappeared.
I closed the door.
“Were you here Tuesday night?”
“No.”
“Did anyone use your laptop?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Think.”
Denise looked confused.
“I left around seven.”
“With your laptop here?”
“Yes.”
“Locked?”
“Yes.”
“Who knows your password?”
“Nobody.”
Then she stopped.
“What?”
Her face changed.
“Javier.”
My stomach dropped.
Months earlier, Denise had helped organize Solara’s anniversary party.
Javier borrowed her laptop to display a presentation when his own device would not connect.
She had entered her password in front of him.
“Have you changed it since?”
She closed her eyes.
“No.”
Our security logs showed someone had entered Solara at 11:14 p.m. using a temporary executive access code.
The code had been generated months earlier for Javier.
It should have expired.
Martin had extended it.
Javier himself had entered the office.
No second traitor.
Just one more consequence of the first.
Security footage confirmed it.
Javier walked through the dark office at 11:15.
Used Denise’s laptop.
Downloaded supplier data.
Stayed nineteen minutes.
Then left.
Rachel almost smiled when she saw the footage.
“He just made our week.”
“How?”
“Threatening you was one thing. Accessing your company after permission was revoked is another.”
The evidence was finally becoming overwhelming.
But Javier wasn’t finished.
Neither was Lydia.
On Friday morning, Lydia posted a ten-minute video online.
I made the mistake of watching it.
She sat in her living room wearing a cream sweater and an expression of wounded dignity.
“My son is being financially abused by his wife.”
I almost choked on my coffee.
She claimed I had controlled all money in the marriage.
Prevented Javier from “building independent wealth.”
Humiliated him.
Excluded Lydia from family events.
Used my business success to dominate everyone.
Then she mentioned Wyatt.
“A violent incident occurred at dinner after Naomi’s younger brother became aggressive.”
Wyatt paused his cereal.
“Aggressive?”
I stared at the screen.
Lydia continued.
“I attempted to protect myself.”
Wyatt touched his cheek.
“She hit me while I was holding chicken.”
“I know.”
“I’m apparently terrifying.”
I turned the video off.
Unfortunately, half the internet did not.
Within hours, strangers were debating our marriage.
Some believed Lydia.
Most did not.
Then our apartment security video leaked.
Not the slap.
There had been no camera inside the dining room.
But the hallway footage showed Lydia and Javier leaving after the confrontation.
Lydia could clearly be heard saying:
“That little parasite deserved worse.”
Javier replied:
“I know, Mom. Just calm down.”
Someone had uploaded it anonymously.
I looked at Wyatt.
“Did you?”
“No.”
Rachel called.
“I did.”
“Rachel!”
“The footage was legally yours, and Lydia publicly made a false accusation concerning Wyatt. We released the relevant portion with his consent.”
I looked at Wyatt.
“You gave consent?”
He shrugged.
“She called me violent.”
The internet changed direction immediately.
People began asking why Javier had agreed that Wyatt “deserved worse.”
Then former Solara employees started commenting.
One wrote:
Naomi paid my salary for six weeks when my baby was premature. Financial abuser? Sure.
Another:
I worked with Javier twice. He introduced himself as co-owner. He wasn’t.
A former warehouse supervisor wrote:
Lydia used to demand free Solara products every month and scream if we asked for paperwork.
That one made me laugh.
But the most important post came from someone I didn’t recognize.
I used to deliver packages to Desert Rose Lifestyle. Half of the boxes came directly from Solara’s warehouse.
Priya investigated.
Inventory had been disappearing.
Not huge amounts.
A few cases at a time.
Over eighteen months, Lydia had received nearly $47,000 in Solara products without paying.
Combined with fake consulting payments, my mother-in-law had benefited by more than $100,000.
The woman who slapped my hungry brother for supposedly eating one free chicken drumstick had secretly taken six figures from me.
The irony was so perfect it almost seemed fictional.
Then Camila called again.
“I want to meet.”
“Why?”
“Because Javier is blaming me now.”
That didn’t surprise me.
We met at Rachel’s office.
Camila looked nothing like the woman I had imagined.
No dramatic entrance.
No glamorous villain.
She looked exhausted.
“I knew Javier was married,” she began.
“Thank you for not insulting me with another lie.”
She nodded.
“He told me you were separated emotionally and staying together for financial reasons.”
“We slept in the same bed until three nights ago.”
Her face went pale.
“I didn’t know that.”
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
At least she admitted it.
She handed Rachel her phone.
“I want to cooperate.”
The messages painted Javier even worse.
He had told Camila that after the refinance, he would file for divorce.
He planned to claim half my business’s increase in value.
He intended to use the money to fund Alvarez Pacific Trading.
Camila had invested $75,000 of her own savings.
She believed she would own forty percent.
Then she discovered documents giving her only fifteen percent.
“Javier lied to everyone,” she said.
I looked at her.
“That doesn’t make you innocent.”
“I know.”
“Why help now?”
“Because yesterday he told me if anyone investigates the $150,000 transfer, I authorized it.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Do you have that message?”
“Yes.”
Then Camila showed us something else.
A group chat.
Javier.
Lydia.
Camila.
Lydia had written:
Once Naomi signs, finally we won’t have to beg that selfish woman for anything.
Javier:
She won’t know what happened until the cash is distributed.
Lydia:
Good. After everything my son sacrificed for her, we deserve it.
Camila had replied:
Are you sure the apartment can be refinanced without her attorney seeing it?
Javier:
Naomi doesn’t have an attorney watching her marriage. She trusts me.
Those three words hit harder than they should have.
She trusts me.
He had not merely betrayed my trust.
He had used it as the mechanism.
Rachel printed everything.
“This case just changed.”
“How?”
“We no longer have to prove Lydia accidentally benefited.”
I stared at the messages.
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
The next morning, Lydia was served with a civil claim related to the diverted company payments and inventory.
Javier called me eleven times.
I blocked him.
Then he sent one email.
Drop the claim against my mother or I will make sure Wyatt never finishes his first semester in Phoenix.
I read it once.
Then again.
Wyatt saw my face.
“What happened?”
I closed the laptop.
“Nothing.”
“Naomi.”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
He stared at me.
Then said the sentence I deserved.
“Stop deciding what truth I can handle.”
I looked at him.
He was right.
So I showed him.
Wyatt read the email.
His face became pale.
“He’s threatening me?”
“Yes.”
“What can he do?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Wyatt surprised me.
He laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because something had occurred to him.
“What?”
“You know Javier doesn’t understand my scholarship.”
“What does that mean?”
“My first-year tuition isn’t being paid by you.”
“I know.”
“It’s paid directly by the university.”
“Yes.”
“So he thinks threatening your money threatens my school.”
I slowly smiled.
Javier had assumed Wyatt depended on me financially.
Just like he assumed everyone could be controlled with money.
Wyatt closed the laptop.
“Let him try.”
But Javier’s next move had nothing to do with tuition.
Monday morning, Wyatt arrived on campus and discovered a disciplinary complaint had been filed against him.
The allegation:
violent conduct, theft, and drug use.
Anonymous supporting documents had been attached.
And one of them appeared to show Wyatt being arrested in Wyoming.
There was only one problem.
May you like
My brother had never been arrested in his life.
Someone had manufactured the record.
