Chapter 5 5

Faith sat down. The leather sighed beneath her, expensive and yielding, designed to make occupants comfortable while Branson destroyed them.

She crossed her legs again, ankle on knee, the posture deliberately casual. "Julian. Option one."

Her lawyer opened his briefcase with a click that sounded like a lock disengaging. "Mr. Jarvis, under New York's equitable distribution statute, my client is entitled to fifty percent of marital assets. Given the duration of the marriage and Mrs. Jarvis's contributions to your public image and charitable foundations, we're prepared to argue for sixty percent of Jarvis family trust principal, plus the Fifth Avenue apartment, the Aspen property, and ongoing support commensurate with the marital standard of living."

Branson's laugh was short and ugly. "Sixty percent." He looked at Faith like she'd transformed into something unrecognizable. "You finally show your teeth, darling. All these years of playing the grateful orphan, and it was always about the money."

"Option two," Faith said.

Julian produced a second document. Thinner. Simpler. "Mrs. Jarvis waives all claims to marital property, trust distributions, real estate holdings, and future support. She retains only premarital assets and personal effects. In exchange, she requests immediate dissolution without contest, and your cooperation in filing joint paperwork with the court today."

The silence stretched.

Branson picked up the second document. His eyes moved fast, trained to absorb contract language, finding the clauses that mattered. Page after page of waivers, releases, quitclaims. Zero. Zero. Zero.

He dropped the papers. "This is a trick."

"No trick."

"You're telling me-" He leaned forward, palms flat on the desk, the posture he used when he was about to close a deal or destroy an opponent. "-that you'll walk away with nothing? The clothes on your back and whatever you brought into this marriage?"

"Less than that." Faith reached into her bag. "I don't want the clothes. I don't want anything that came from you."

Her fingers closed on plastic. She tossed the USB drive onto the desk-it skidded across the polished surface and stopped against his hand, a small black rectangle containing everything she'd learned while he ignored her.

"What's this?"

"A business proposal." Faith stood again. She couldn't sit still anymore, not with this much adrenaline in her blood. "Dax Kincaid's people sent it over six months ago. Unsolicited. He thought a dissatisfied wife might be a useful asset. I wasn't interested then. I'm not interested now. But I kept his research."

Branson's hand closed on the drive. He didn't insert it into his computer-he knew better than to open unknown files on his primary system-but his thumb traced the casing, and she saw him recognize the manufacturer. Military-grade encryption. The kind Kincaid's fund used for sensitive communications.

"You're bluffing."

"Am I?"

She walked to the window. Seventy-three stories down, the city moved in patterns she'd learned to read during the years she'd pretended to be decorative. Traffic flows. Pedestrian density. The invisible networks of power and information that Branson navigated so effortlessly.

"I've had a lot of time, Branson. You were never home. Your mother stopped inviting me to lunch after I refused to chair her committee. So I started reading. I read the financial reports you left on your desk. The prospectuses. The market analyses." She turned back to face him. "I know how your empire works. I know where it's vulnerable. And I know that if I file for divorce with cause-adultery, cruelty, abandonment-the discovery process will open every Jarvis Group subsidiary to examination. Every shell company. Every political contribution that skirted disclosure requirements."

Branson's face had gone still. That was worse than his anger-that frozen calculation that meant he was treating her as a genuine threat.

"Kincaid wants to short your stock," Faith continued. "He's been building a position for months, waiting for the right catalyst. A messy divorce, public allegations, regulatory scrutiny-that's his catalyst. I've seen his models. If I cooperate with his fund, Jarvis Group loses forty percent of market value in ninety days. Maybe more."

"You wouldn't." The words came flat, certain. "You don't have the stomach for destruction. You're-"

"What? Grateful? Obedient?" Faith laughed, and the sound surprised them both. "I was those things. You trained me well. But you made one mistake, Branson. You taught me that everything has a price. Even me. Especially me."

She walked back to the desk. Placed both palms flat on the surface, mirroring his posture, close enough to smell the coffee on his breath.

"Sign the zero-compensation agreement. Today. Or I call Kincaid, and we find out exactly how much destruction I can stomach."