I didn't speak.
Neither did Colton.
Rain tapped against my apartment windows while I waited for him to explain what he had just admitted.
Finally, he said, “I knew she wanted your money.”
My voice came out quietly.
“How?”
“She told me.”
The simplicity of his answer made it worse.
“She told you she wanted my money?”
“Yes.”
“And you still married her?”
“I thought I could control the situation.”
I laughed once.
It was a small, empty sound.
“You couldn't even control your own bank account.”
“I know.”
“When did she tell you?”
“Before we got engaged.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
He continued.
“She said you were wealthy. She said our parents had always favored me, and that eventually you would help me if I needed it.”
“That part was true.”
“I know.”
“Then what did you think?”
“I thought she was joking.”
“You gave her my records.”
“I was trying to prove to her that you wouldn't help.”
I turned.
“What?”
He swallowed.
“She kept asking how much you had. I told her you wouldn't give us anything. She said I didn't understand how much money you actually had.”
I stared at him.
“So you showed her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she said if I could prove you were worth enough, she could convince you.”
“Convince me to do what?”
“Invest in our business.”
I closed my eyes.
“The fake business.”
He nodded.
“When I realized it wasn't real, I was already trapped.”
“How?”
“She had the loan documents.”
“Your signature.”
“And Dad's.”
I sat down.
“Did you know she used our parents' house as collateral?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before the loan closed.”
I stared at him.
He looked ashamed.
“I thought I could repay it.”
“With what?”
“I don't know.”
That was the answer I had expected.
The answer I had heard my entire life.
He never knew.
Someone else would fix it.
Usually me.
I asked about the identity documents.
“Did you give Briana my passport copy?”
“Yes.”
“Did you give her my tax records?”
“Yes.”
“Did you give her my signature?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know she was planning to apply for the $480,000 loan?”
“No.”
“Did you know she was planning to use my name?”
“No.”
He sounded sincere.
That didn't make what he had done smaller.
It made it sadder.
“What else don't I know?”
He didn't answer.
I waited.
“Colton.”
“She knew about your scholarship fund.”
My heart stopped.
“I didn't have a scholarship fund when you met her.”
“I know.”
“Then how did she know?”
“She said you talked about helping girls in engineering.”
I looked at him.
“I had never told her that.”
“She knew things.”
“What things?”
“Your routines. Your office. Your apartment. The people you worked with.”
I felt a chill.
“How?”
Colton shook his head.
“I don't know.”
I immediately contacted security at Kaleth Robotics.
Then I contacted my private investigators.
We reviewed access logs.
Nothing obvious appeared.
No unauthorized entries.
No strange visitors.
No compromised accounts.
Then Mara found something.
A former contractor had accessed a shared administrative system months earlier.
The account had been deactivated.
But before it was closed, someone had downloaded executive contact information.
My name was included.
The contractor's name was Kendra Vale.
Briana's friend.
The same woman from the print-shop footage.
The same woman who had attended my family events.
I called the investigator.
“Find everything on Kendra.”
He did.
She had been involved in three companies connected to Briana.
She had also worked briefly for a consulting firm that handled corporate administration for Kaleth Robotics.
The contract had ended eighteen months earlier.
That was enough.
Briana had not simply studied my family.
She had obtained information through a network of people.
Kendra had access to company data.
Colton provided family records.
My mother supplied personal details.
My father provided property information.
And Briana assembled it all.
Piece by piece.
I asked the investigator one question.
“Was I ever in physical danger?”
He hesitated.
“We can't rule it out.”
That answer changed the air in the room.
Until then, I had thought the danger was financial.
Money.
Debt.
Fraud.
But if Briana had been collecting information about my movements, my home, my assets, and my schedule, then money might not have been the only thing she wanted.
The investigator showed me a message recovered from Briana's phone.
It had been sent to Kendra.
“She won't cooperate voluntarily.”
Kendra replied.
“Then what?”
Briana's response was simple.
“Make her afraid.”
I stared at the screen.
For the first time, I felt fear.
Not for myself.
For Tobias.
For my parents.
For anyone near me.
I increased security immediately.
Tobias noticed.
“What happened?”
I told him.
He listened carefully.
Then he asked, “Do you want me to stay somewhere else?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don't want fear deciding where I live.”
He nodded.
“But I'll walk you home.”
“You don't have to.”
“I know.”
That answer made me smile.
He didn't tell me what to do.
He simply offered to stand beside me.
The investigation moved faster after that.
Kendra was questioned.
She denied everything.
Then investigators showed her the print-shop footage.
Her story changed.
She admitted copying documents for Briana.
She claimed she didn't know what Briana intended to do with them.
Then she admitted that Briana had paid her.
How much?
Twenty thousand dollars.
For information.
The payment records were found.
That opened another door.
Kendra had also received money from a company called Mercer Holdings.
The name Ethan had mentioned.
I contacted him.
He looked stunned when I told him.
“Mercer Holdings isn't mine.”
“Your name is connected to it.”
“I know.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Briana used my identity too.”
That revelation stopped me.
Ethan had been another victim.
But then he told me something I hadn't expected.
“There's someone else.”
“Who?”
“My sister.”
“Why?”
“She died two years ago.”
I waited.
“She left behind a daughter.”
A niece.
Ethan said Briana had become involved with his family after his sister's death.
She had offered to help with financial matters.
Then money disappeared.
I felt the pattern tightening.
Briana didn't merely target husbands.
She targeted vulnerable families.
She found people with assets, people with grief, people who trusted easily.
Then she positioned herself close enough to control the paperwork.
The investigator eventually found the final piece.
Briana had used my identity not simply to obtain money.
She had tried to create a financial profile that would make her own transactions appear connected to me.
If successful, investigators might have followed the money toward my accounts.
She intended to make me look like the source.
I read the report twice.
That meant the $480,000 loan was only part of the plan.
She had been building a trail.
A trail designed to point toward me.
The next morning, Colton came to my office.
He stood outside the door looking exhausted.
“I need to tell you everything.”
I let him in.
He sat across from me.
“I found something in Briana's old laptop.”
My heart tightened.
“What?”
“A folder.”
“What was in it?”
“Photographs.”
“Of what?”
“Your apartment.”
I froze.
“How many?”
“Dozens.”
He pulled out his phone.
He showed me the photographs.
My front entrance.
My parking garage.
The lobby.
The street outside.
The coffee shop where I sometimes met Tobias.
The entrance to Kaleth.
My hands became cold.
“When were these taken?”
“Over several months.”
“Who took them?”
“I don't know.”
He swiped.
Then another photograph appeared.
It was of me leaving my apartment.
Beside me was Tobias.
The date was two weeks after I had first met him.
I stared at the image.
Tobias had not been part of the financial dispute.
He had not been involved with my family.
He had simply been near me.
I looked at Colton.
“Why are you showing me this now?”
He lowered his phone.
“Because there's one more folder.”
“What folder?”
He swallowed.
“It's labeled with your name.”
I felt something inside me tighten.
“What's in it?”
“I didn't open it.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought if I did, there would be no going back.”
I looked at him.
“You're right.”
He placed the laptop on my desk.
The screen was locked.
He gave me the password.
I opened the folder.
There were financial documents.
Property records.
Photographs.
Schedules.
Copies of my identification.
And one final document.
A handwritten page.
At the top was my full name.
Below it were three words.
“Final leverage plan.”
I read the first line.
Then the second.
Then I stopped.
Because the plan did not involve stealing my money.
It involved taking something far more valuable.
And the name written beneath it was Tobias.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: The Folder With Tobias’s Name Was Not a Threat Against His Life, but It Exposed the One Weakness Briana Believed Vanessa Could Never Protect
The Message That Finally Made Vanessa Stop Paying for a Family That Had Never Learned Her Worth
Part 8 of 20
