Chapter 149 Alexander

Chapter 149 Talia
“He used your father’s money,” Darla repeated, and this time her voice broke just slightly on the last word. She had known him too, had stood at the funeral, had held Amber’s hand in the front pew when everything else felt too heavy to carry alone.

“I know,” Amber said quietly. “I want to destroy him.” She said with no single ounce of emotion.

“Amber…”

“Darla.” Amber raised one hand slightly, stopping her before she could spiral further. “Look at me.”

Darla did.

“Let’s not do anything yet,” Amber said quietly. “No talking, no reacting, no giving any sign that we know. We wait until the right time, and until we have everything we need. Do you understand?”

Darla exhaled slowly. “You sound very calm. It’s a bit scary.” 

“Good,” Amber said, picking up her phone. “That’s how I need you to sound.”

“What are you going to do?” Darla asked.

“First, I’m getting a lawyer,” Amber said, scrolling through her contacts with steady focus. “Not a divorce lawyer. Not yet. A financial attorney. Someone who understands asset tracing, and someone who has no connection to Archer or anyone around him.”

“Do you know anyone like that?” She asked.

“My father’s estate attorney retired last year,” Amber said. “But the firm is still active. I trust them, they’ve never worked with Archer or his people.”

She stood up from the chair. “I’m calling them today. I’ll pay a cash retainer. Private meeting. Nothing will go through any account he can track.”

Darla nodded slowly. “Smart move my boss.”

“I need you to help me with something else,” Amber said, holding Darla’s gaze. Her voice stayed calm, but firm.

“I want the transaction history from the boutique’s payment system. Every single purchase made with that black Amex card. I want it printed out, complete, and organised.”

She paused for a moment, then added more carefully, “And no digital copies. No emails, no files, nothing that can lead back to you or the system.”

“I already requested it yesterday,” Darla said.

Amber looked up at her.

Darla just gave a small shrug, like it was nothing. “I knew you were going to ask. I just didn’t know when.”

For the first time in two days, something shifted in Amber’s expression, so slight it could almost be missed. 

“Twenty-two years,” Darla agreed. “Now go make your call. I’ll hold the floor.”

Amber stepped into the small private restroom beside the office and closed the door behind her. She dialed the number.

A receptionist picked up on the second ring. Amber introduced herself, mentioned her father’s estate file from six years ago, and requested an urgent private consultation. Her voice stayed even, controlled, like she had done this many times before.

By the end of the call, the appointment was confirmed for Monday morning at nine. A cash deposit was required to secure it, along with a signed confidentiality agreement.

She ended the call and stayed where she was, turning slightly toward the mirror above the sink.

The woman staring back looked perfectly put together. Hair smooth, makeup intact, eyeliner clean. Nothing about her suggested hurt or betrayal. 

No one would guess. No one would look at her and see what had happened or what she was planning. They would only see a boutique owner getting through a normal workday.

That was exactly the point.

Back at the desk, she opened a new notebook, leather-bound, plain black, the kind she reserved for things she never wanted misplaced or seen by the wrong eyes. There were three others just like it already tucked away in her drawer, each filled with its own quiet purpose.

On the inside cover, she wrote carefully in her neat, small handwriting, “Silent Empire.”

Then she turned to the first page and wrote the date at the top.

Then she wrote.

“He doesn’t know I know. That is my only advantage, and I will not waste it. Every move from this point is deliberate. No emotion. No reaction. No warning. By the time he realizes I’m moving, it will already be over.”

She capped the pen, closed the notebook, and slid it into the bottom drawer where she kept her private things.

Then she locked it, the small set of boutique keys turning once with a quiet final click.

That evening, across the city, Raymond Holt sat in his car parked outside a restaurant, watching quietly.

Archer showed up a moment later. Celine was with him. She stayed close, her arm linked with his as they walked into the building together.

He must have seen this on several occasions, more than once.

At some point, it had stopped unsettling him the way it used to. He told himself it wasn’t his place to care. Marriage was complicated. Men like Archer moved differently. And his role was simple,  focus on the numbers, not the ethics behind them.

He repeated it to himself again, still sitting in the car.

But this time it didn’t settle the same way. Something about tonight felt off, subtle, hard to place, like a detail just out of reach.

Eventually, he started the car and drove home. He poured himself a drink, then sat down in his living room in silence.

His phone lit up. A message from Archer.

Tomorrow’s board deck needs the Carver Ridge figures adjusted. Remove the trust disbursement line. Route it under “property maintenance.” Raymond confirmed.

Raymond held the message on his screen for a long moment, reading it again.

Then he typed his reply slowly, deliberately. “Confirmed. I’ll have it done by morning.”

He didn’t send anything else. He placed the phone face-down on the table and sat back in his chair. The drink in his hand went down in one long swallow, and the silence that followed felt heavier than before.

That same night, Amber sat at her vanity and slowly removed her earrings, one by one.

Behind her in the mirror, Archer was already in bed, absorbed in his phone, eyes fixed on the screen as if she weren’t there at all.

She watched him in the mirror as he scrolled, tapped, and scrolled again, completely at ease in the glow of the screen. There wasn’t even a trace of discomfort on his face, not real guilt, he wasn't pretending today like yesterday.

That, she thought, was the thing about men who had been lying for too long. Eventually, the pretense ends and they begin to show their true nature. 

It didn't bother her any longer.  

She switched off the vanity light and got into bed beside him.

“Good day?” he asked, eyes still on his phone.

“Very good,” she replied softly. “Busy.”

“Good.” He set his phone aside and reached for the lamp, turning it off. “Night, Amber.”

“Night.” She replied.

He was asleep within ten minutes.

Amber stayed awake, lying still in the dark beside him. Sleep wasn't coming tonight because her mind was somewhere. It was already on Monday morning, already in a quiet office, already in a conversation with a financial attorney she had not yet met.

She thought about the leather notebook locked in the bottom drawer of her boutique desk.

And then, more clearly than anything else, she thought about her father’s handwriting on that old letter, “Build something real, Amber. Something yours.”

She turned her head slightly and studied the faint outline of Archer’s profile in the dark.

“I am, she said to herself. I’m building something you can’t even see yet.”