Chapter 6
The next two weeks were a blur.
Police interviews.
FBI interrogations.
Lawyers.
So many lawyers.
It turned out Ethan’s fraud was bigger than any of us had imagined. The $2.3 million from investors was just the beginning. There were fake companies, forged documents, a whole web of lies that stretched back almost a decade.
And the three of us were the star witnesses.
Every day, we sat in conference rooms or police stations and told our stories. Over and over. The same questions. The same answers. The same pain, relived a hundred times.
But something strange happened during those interviews.
We became friends.
Real friends.
Not the kind of friends you go shopping with or get coffee with (though we did that too), but the kind who had seen each other at our absolute worst and decided to stay anyway.
Vanessa was the strategist. She had the PI, the lawyer connections, the inside knowledge of Ethan’s business dealings. She was five years older than me, sharp as a tack, and twice as tough. She had been a corporate lawyer before Lily was born, and she was putting those skills to good use dismantling Ethan’s empire piece by piece.
Sophia was the heart. She was the one who brought us soup when we were too exhausted to cook. Who held our hands when the tears came. Who made sure Lily never saw any of the ugliness, who turned every terrible day into an adventure for a four-year-old who just knew Daddy was “working far away for a long time.”
And me?
I was the one with the money.
Or what was left of it.
The safety deposit box had $180,000 in cash. Not enough to cover everything Ethan had taken, but a start. And my trust fund—what Ethan hadn’t touched—was still there. Enough to hire the best lawyers in the city. Enough to make sure Ethan never saw the light of day again.
We split the safety deposit money three ways.
Vanessa put hers in a college fund for Lily.
Sophia paid off her student loans.
I used mine to start a foundation.
For women like us.
Women who had been conned. Manipulated. Lied to. Women who thought they were in love, only to find out they were just the next target.
We called it The Lily Foundation.
After the only good thing that had ever come from Ethan Miller.
Two weeks after his arrest, we got the call.
Ethan was willing to talk.
He wanted to make a deal.
Full immunity for the fraud charges in exchange for testifying against his partners. And in exchange, he would tell us where the rest of the money was.
All of it.
The $2.3 million.
Our $317,000.
Everything.
The FBI wanted us to agree.
Said it was the only way to take down the whole ring.
Said it was the only way we would ever get our money back.
We met at the federal building downtown.
Ethan was brought in wearing an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs around his wrists and ankles. He looked thinner. Tired. The charm was gone. All that was left was a broken man.
He looked at each of us as he sat down.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. His voice was hoarse.
“Cut the crap,” Vanessa said. She was sitting at the head of the table, lawyer on one side, FBI agent on the other. “Where’s the money, Ethan?”
He flinched.
“Straight to business, huh?”
“You have ten minutes,” she said. “Then we walk. And you spend the next forty years in prison wondering if you should have talked faster.”
Ethan nodded slowly.
He looked at me.
“I really am sorry, Claire. About everything.”
I said nothing.
Just stared at him.
He looked at Sophia.
“You too, Soph. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. And I threw it away.”
Sophia’s lip trembled, but she didn’t speak.
He looked at Vanessa.
“And you, Ness. The love of my life. The mother of my child. I ruined everything. I know that. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it right. Even if I’m in prison.”
“Ten minutes,” Vanessa repeated.
Ethan sighed.
He reached into his jumpsuit pocket—they had let him keep a small piece of paper—and slid it across the table.
“It’s all there,” he said. “Account numbers. Passwords. Access codes. Everything. There’s $4.7 million total in three different accounts. In the Caymans, Switzerland, and Panama.”
The FBI agent grabbed the paper and rushed out of the room to verify.
“$4.7 million?” I said. “The indictment said $2.3.”
Ethan nodded.
“That’s what they found,” he said. “There’s more. A lot more. I’ve been… good at what I do. Too good.”
“Why?” Sophia asked. She was crying now. “Why did you do it? We loved you. All of us. Why wasn’t that enough?”
Ethan looked down at his cuffed hands.
“Because I’m broken,” he said quietly. “I’ve been broken since I was a kid. My dad… he was never satisfied. No matter how much I made, no matter how successful I was, it was never enough. So I kept pushing. Kept reaching. Kept taking. And then I met Vanessa, and she was perfect. Too perfect. I didn’t deserve her. So I started the fraud to be the man I thought she wanted.”
He looked at me.
“Then I met you, Claire. And you were strong. Independent. You didn’t need me. And for the first time in my life, someone didn’t need me. And I wanted that. I wanted to be the man you thought I was.”
He looked at Sophia.
“And you, Soph. You were kind. So kind. You saw the good in everyone, even when there wasn’t any. And I wanted that kindness for myself. I wanted to be worthy of it.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“So I created three different versions of myself. Each one perfect for each of you. And after a while… I didn’t know which one was real. I lost myself. And I lost all of you.”
The FBI agent came back into the room.
He nodded.
“It checks out,” he said. “Every penny is there.”
Vanessa stood up.
“Then we’re done here.”
“Wait.” Ethan reached across the table as far as his cuffs would let him. “Vanessa. Please. Let me talk to Lily. Just once. On the phone. Let me tell her I love her.”
Vanessa looked at him for a long time.
“No,” she said finally. “Lily deserves better than a father who has to call her from prison. She deserves to forget you. To have a normal life. A happy life. And I’m going to give that to her. With or without you.”
She turned to walk away.
“Vanessa!” Ethan called after her. “I’m still her father! You can’t keep me from her forever!”
She stopped.
Didn’t turn around.
“Watch me.”
And she walked out.
Sophia and I followed.
Outside, the sun was shining.
People walked by on the street, laughing, talking, living their lives. Completely unaware that just a few floors above, a man had just confessed to ruining half a dozen lives.
Vanessa took a deep breath.
Then another.
And then she broke down.
Right there on the sidewalk.
Sobbing.
Sophia and I wrapped our arms around her.
The three of us stood there in the middle of downtown Chicago, holding each other up, while the world kept turning.
May you like
When the tears finally stopped, Vanessa wiped her eyes.
“Okay,” she said. “Now we build.”
