Chapter 5 - When the Bait Was Taken
Celeste stared at the message without speaking.
I guided her back into the hallway.
“Don’t touch anything.”
The police arrived within minutes. Building security provided footage showing a hooded figure entering through a service stairwell. The face was hidden, but the person’s height and movements resembled Vincent.
That was not proof.
What mattered more was that the stolen phone was no longer essential. We had copied and authenticated its files. The original would have strengthened the evidence, but taking it did not erase what we possessed.
The threat changed everything.
Marcus urged us to stop direct contact. Mariah helped move Celeste to another secure apartment associated with the hospital. Only essential staff received the address.
I wanted to stay beside Celeste every minute, but she refused to let fear control our decisions.
“They want us to panic,” she said. “If you abandon the plan now, the threat works.”
“This isn’t only about the money anymore.”
“It never was.”
“What if Vincent comes after you?”
“Then we take precautions. We don’t surrender.”
She looked exhausted, yet her voice was stronger than it had been in the backyard.
“I spent eleven months doing whatever they demanded because I was afraid of losing you,” she continued. “I’m not giving them another day.”
The police questioned Vincent.
He denied entering the apartment and claimed he had been at the auto shop. One employee supported him, but surveillance footage from a gas station placed Vincent’s car near our building.
Yvonne called repeatedly. I did not answer.
Then she sent a message:
Your brother is frightened. He made a mistake. We can settle this privately.
I forwarded it to Marcus.
The next day, Vincent contacted me from a different number.
Meet me alone. I have the phone and all the original documents. I’ll give you everything if you save the shop.
I did not meet him alone.
With guidance from Marcus and the investigating authorities, I arranged a daytime meeting at a public café. I made no illegal promises and carried no settlement funds.
Vincent arrived wearing a cap and sunglasses. He looked as if he had not slept.
“Are you cooperating with the police?” he asked.
“I’m protecting my wife.”
“Mom started this.”
“You benefited.”
“I didn’t know how bad Celeste was.”
“You saw her every day.”
“She refused food.”
“She told me you withheld it.”
“She’s lying.”
“Then why steal the phone?”
His eyes shifted.
“I didn’t.”
“You just said you had it.”
“Mom gave it to me.”
“So she broke into the apartment?”
“I don’t know how she got it.”
The lies were collapsing faster than he could build them.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Two hundred thousand. That clears the urgent debts. Then I’ll transfer the shop to you and give Celeste whatever she wants.”
“With imaginary money?”
He froze.
I allowed the silence to stretch.
“There is no million-dollar settlement,” I said.
His face emptied.
“It was bait.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
“You made us believe—”
“I made one statement. You chose to forge documents, manipulate Celeste, and plan how to control money that never existed.”
Vincent pushed back from the table.
“You ruined me.”
“You used almost a hundred thousand dollars that I earned. You put fraudulent debt in my wife’s name. You forged my signature. You ruined yourself.”
He leaned across the table.
“If Bellhaven falls, Mom’s house goes with it.”
“The lien is fraudulent.”
“There are other debts.”
“What other debts?”
He stopped.
I saw the moment he realized he had said too much.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Then there is nothing else to discuss.”
As I stood, he grabbed my wrist.
Several customers turned.
I removed his hand without striking him.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“Mom borrowed from people who don’t care whether documents are legal.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“Forty thousand.”
“For what?”
“To keep the shop open after the lender froze the account.”
“Who did she borrow from?”
“A private finance company.”
“Name?”
“North Star Capital.”
Naomi had already found North Star among the recent filings. It was a high-interest commercial lender, not a criminal organization, but its contract was brutal. Yvonne had pledged personal property and future business revenue.
“When is payment due?” I asked.
“Friday.”
It was Wednesday.
“What happens Friday?”
“They begin seizing equipment.”
“That’s a civil process. They cannot simply take whatever they want.”
“You don’t understand. If customers see collectors at the shop, it’s over.”
“It was already over.”
He looked suddenly young.
“Please.”
For a moment, I remembered the boy who followed me around our old neighborhood. Vincent had once waited outside my school for two hours because he was afraid to walk home alone.
I had spent years protecting him.
That history did not obligate me to finance his cruelty.
“Give Marcus the original documents and the phone,” I said. “Tell the truth to the lender and the investigators. That is the only help I’m offering.”
He left without agreeing.
That evening, Dr. Patel warned that Celeste’s treatment might need to pause if her blood counts did not improve.
Celeste listened calmly until the doctor left. Then she turned toward the window.
“Are you afraid?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
“I don’t want our last months together to be about Yvonne and Vincent.”
“They won’t be.”
“You can’t promise how many months I have.”
“No. But I can promise who owns them.”
She looked at me.
“We do.”
The next morning, Vincent entered Marcus’s office carrying a cardboard file box.
He surrendered the cracked phone, the original loan application, falsified invoices, internal Bellhaven records, and copies of messages between him and Yvonne.
He also gave a formal statement.
According to Vincent, Yvonne had first diverted my money for household expenses. Later, when his auto shop struggled, she proposed using Celeste as a guarantor because Celeste’s credit had once been excellent.
Vincent claimed he resisted.
The messages told a different story.
In one exchange, he wrote:
She’s sick anyway. If the business works, we repay it before Dominic comes home.
Yvonne answered:
Exactly. He never needs to know.
Another message discussed forcing Celeste to record the investment video.
A third addressed her food.
Vincent wrote:
Stop buying the special groceries. We need the cash this month.
Yvonne responded:
She can eat what’s in the house if she earns it.
I had to step outside after reading that.
Marcus found me beside the elevator.
“Vincent is cooperating because he wants leniency,” he said. “That does not make him innocent.”
“I know.”
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
“You don’t have to be.”
By Friday, the lender formally suspended enforcement against Celeste pending its fraud investigation. My alleged lien was also disputed.
North Star began its lawful recovery process against Bellhaven’s assets.
The police confirmed that evidence supported charges relating to identity theft, forgery, financial fraud, coercion, and the apartment break-in. The exact charges would depend on the prosecutor.
Vincent was arrested first.
Yvonne watched from the porch as officers placed him in a patrol car.
She called me immediately.
“This is your fault.”
I remained silent.
“He is your brother.”
Still I said nothing.
“Celeste poisoned you against your own blood.”
“Celeste was my family before you decided she wasn’t human.”
“I did what was necessary.”
“For whom?”
“You’ll understand when she’s gone and you have nobody.”
I ended the call.
That afternoon, Yvonne requested a meeting through Marcus. She offered to sign over her interest in the house if I persuaded Vincent to withdraw his accusations against her and asked investigators to end the case.
Marcus explained that I could not control a criminal investigation.
Yvonne insisted she had information about Celeste that would “change everything.”
Against advice, Celeste wanted to hear it.
The meeting occurred at Marcus’s office with everyone informed that it would be recorded.
Yvonne entered without the hummingbird necklace.
She placed a sealed envelope on the table.
“Before you destroy this family,” she said, “you should know your wife was planning to leave you.”
Celeste frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
Yvonne opened the envelope and removed printed emails.
They appeared to show Celeste corresponding with a man named Aaron, discussing money, travel, and a new life after Dominic returned from Canada.
One line read:
Once Dominic’s final payment arrives, I’ll take my share and disappear.
I looked at Celeste.
Her face had lost all color.
“I never wrote that.”
Yvonne leaned back.
“The account belongs to you.”
Celeste picked up the pages.
The messages contained private details about our marriage that only someone close to us would know.
Yvonne smiled.
“You wanted the truth, Dominic. Now you have it.”
I studied the dates.
The earliest email had been sent fourteen months ago—three months before Celeste’s diagnosis.
For the first time since returning home, doubt found a way inside me.
Then Celeste pointed to the final page.
“Dominic, look at the address.”
At first, I saw nothing unusual.
Then I noticed one additional letter in the username.
The account was not Celeste’s.
May you like
It was an imitation.
And the recovery email printed beneath it belonged to Yvonne.
