Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Ledgers
The holding facility at the Miami-Dade Pre-Trial Detention Center smelled of bleach, despair, and stale coffee.
Sitting across the stainless-steel table in Interview Room 4, Brandon Hawthorne looked like a man who had aged ten years in twelve hours. The arrogant smirk that had defined his face throughout our marriage was entirely gone, replaced by frantic, bloodshot eyes and nervous tics. He was still wearing the rumpled designer suit from the morning, now stained with coffee and his own nervous sweat.
"Olivia," he breathed, practically throwing himself against the bolted chair as the guard led me into the visitor’s side of the reinforced glass barrier. "Thank God. You have to drop the charges. Please. It was a misunderstanding—Mom panicked about the Cartier card, and we just wanted to talk to you—"
