He couldn’t finish.
“I’m not trying to say anything bad about your mom. I’m just telling you what I saw with my own eyes.”
“But this is… this is insane. Mom has worked at the company for twenty years. She would never… Mike, I know this is hard to hear, but I’m not lying to you.”
He stood up and paced the room.
“Maybe you misunderstood something? Maybe these contracts are part of some legal project you just don’t know about?”
“You don’t use shell companies for legal projects. But… Mike…” Ellie stood up and faced him. “Look at me.”
He looked.
“Why would I lie to you? Why would I accuse your mother if it wasn’t true? What do I have to gain?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was lost. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Then just wait. The audit will reveal everything.”
But Ellie herself wasn’t so sure. If Susan had managed to cover her tracks and point the finger at her, she was standing on the edge of a cliff, not knowing if she would fall.
The audit lasted three days. For three days, Ellie sat at home, unable to do anything. Mike went to work and came back late, barely speaking to her. A wall had grown between them, invisible but palpable. He doubted her, her words, their marriage.
On the fourth day, the CEO called.
“Eleanor, could you come to my office, please? Tomorrow at nine.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Yes, we found something interesting.”
His voice sounded strange—not hostile, but not friendly either. Just strange.
The night before the meeting, Ellie didn’t sleep a wink. In the morning, she put on her best suit—a gray, professional one. Her grandmother used to say, “Dress like you’re going to win, and victory will come.”
Mr. Henderson was waiting for her in his office alone, without her mother-in-law.
“Please, have a seat, Eleanor.”
She sat down, her hands folded in her lap.
“The audit is complete,” the CEO began. “The results are inconclusive.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we found what you described. Contracts with non-existent companies, money that vanished into thin air.”
Ellie’s heart beat faster.
“But,” he continued, “we also found other documents. Documents that point to your involvement.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Perhaps.” He looked at her intently. “Eleanor, I’ve been with this company for thirty years. I’ve known Susan for almost as long, and I know what she’s capable of.”
Ellie froze.
“But I also know,” the CEO’s voice softened, “what a person who is lying looks like. And you are not lying.”
She felt tears welling up in her eyes.
“I need time,” Mr. Henderson said, “to get to the bottom of this. And I need your help.”
“What should I do?”
“For now, nothing. Go back to work, act as if everything is normal. And I… I will find the truth. I promise.”
Ellie left the office feeling like she had an ally. Perhaps her only one. But she didn’t know that her mother-in-law was already preparing a new attack. An attack designed to destroy not just her career, but her marriage as well.
Susan was not used to losing. When her son kicked her out of his house, choosing that penniless girl over his own mother for the first time in his life, she was seething with rage. The entire drive back to her condo, she was silent, gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white.
“Fine,” she thought, “this is just the beginning. We’ll see who has the last laugh.”
For twenty years, she had built her empire at Summit Construction. For twenty years, she had carefully, piece by piece, siphoned off money—small amounts at first, then larger sums. She had learned to cover her tracks so well that no audit ever found anything. And then this girl shows up. This worthless orphan who managed to wrap her son around her little finger. Not only did she invade her family, but she also started digging into the company’s books.
She had to act decisively. The audit she herself had initiated had yielded inconclusive results. Mr. Henderson was clearly suspicious. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he looked at her after speaking with her daughter-in-law. That meant it was time for Plan B. If she couldn’t destroy the girl’s reputation at work, she would destroy her marriage, leave her alone, without support, without protection, and then finish her off.
Susan picked up her phone and dialed a number.
“Hello, Rick? It’s me. I need your help.”
Ellie returned to work with a heavy heart. Officially, the audit had cleared her; no direct evidence of her guilt was found. But a shadow of suspicion remained. Colleagues glanced at her sideways, whispering behind her back. Some openly avoided her. Her mother-in-law was pointedly formal. No nitpicking, no attacks, just cold politeness. This was more frightening than open hostility. “She’s planning something,” Ellie thought. “She’s preparing her next move.”
Mike had changed after that evening too. No, he hadn’t become colder or more distant. On the contrary, he became more attentive, more caring. He asked about her day, offered to pick her up from work, cooked dinner while she rested. But something between them had broken. Ellie could see it in his eyes—a shadow of doubt he tried to hide. He wanted to believe her, he really wanted to, but somewhere deep inside, he was still torn. His mother or his wife? Who to believe? He fell asleep and woke up with that question.
“Mike,” she said one evening, sitting next to him on the couch. “We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“About us. About what’s happening.”
He put his phone down and turned to her.
“I know you’re torn,” Ellie continued, “between me and your mom, and I’m not asking you to choose.”
“Ellie…”
“Let me finish. I’m not asking you to choose, I’m just asking for one thing—give me time to prove I’m right. Don’t take my word for it, don’t take your mom’s word for it, just wait until the truth comes out.”
He was silent for a long time.
“You know I love you,” he finally said, “but she’s my mother, Ellie. I’ve known her my whole life, and what you’re saying is too horrifying to just accept.”
“I understand.”
“If you’re right,” he faltered, “if you’re right, it means I never knew my own mother, that my whole life has been a lie.”
“Sometimes we don’t see what we don’t want to see.”
Mike closed his eyes and leaned back on the couch.
“Give me some time,” he asked. “I’ll try to figure it out myself.”
“Okay.”
She leaned against his shoulder, and he put his arm around her. They sat like that for a long time, in silence, and Ellie felt like it was the calm before the storm.
The storm came a week later. Mike had to go on a business trip, a real one this time, to the capital for three days. Ellie was left alone in the big, empty house. The first night, she went to bed early, exhausted from work and anxiety. She fell asleep quickly, sinking into a dark, dreamless slumber.
She woke up to the sound of a door opening. Her heart lurched. She sat up in bed, listening. Footsteps in the hallway—heavy, male footsteps.
“Mike?” was her first thought. But he wasn’t due back for two more days. The footsteps approached the bedroom. Ellie grabbed her phone, ready to dial 911.
The door swung open. A strange man stood in the doorway. Tall, dark-haired, with his shirt unbuttoned. He smelled of alcohol.
“Hey, beautiful,” he grinned. “Weren’t expecting me?”
“Who are you? How did you get in here?”
“Easy, easy,” he said, stepping into the room. “No need to shout. I’m Rick. Your mother-in-law gave me a key. Said you’d be happy to see me.”
Ellie went cold. A trap. This was a trap.
“Get out of my house, now!”
“Or what?” He kept grinning, but his eyes were predatory. “Gonna call your husband? Tell him he caught you with your lover?”
“You’re not my lover, I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“That doesn’t matter now.”
He pulled out his phone and took several pictures. There. A man in the bedroom, a disheveled woman in her nightgown. Pictures don’t lie.
Ellie jumped out of bed.
“Get out, or I’m calling the police!”
“Go ahead,” Rick shrugged. “By the time they get here, the pics will already be with your hubby, along with all the right captions.”
He turned and walked out. Ellie heard the front door slam. She was shaking. Her hands wouldn’t obey her. She barely managed to dial Mike’s number.
“Ellie, what’s wrong?”
“Mike…” she sobbed. “Mike, there was a man here, some guy named Rick. He said your mom gave him a key. He was taking pictures of me in the bedroom.”
“What? What man? What are you talking about?”
She frantically told him everything. There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Mike, are you hearing me?”
“I hear you.”
“It was a setup. Your mother wants you to think I’m cheating on you.”
Again, silence. Long, heavy silence.
“Mike…”
“I… I need to think.”
“What is there to think about? I’m calling you first, telling you everything exactly as it happened. If I were guilty, would I be doing this?”
“Ellie, I don’t know what to think. You’re accusing my mother of monstrous things. First theft, now this.”
“Because it’s the truth!”
“Or are you trying to get ahead of the story? Tell your version before I find out the truth.”
Those words hit her like a punch to the gut.
“You… you don’t believe me?”
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