Chapter 5 YOUR FATHER SOLD YOU

ELIZA WHITMORE'S POV

I didn't feel the floor anymore. I wasn't even sure I was breathing. "My father what?" I asked, my voice cracking in the middle like it couldn't carry the weight of the words.

Kit didn't flinch. "Sold you." She said. I never expected it to turn out this way. The man I spent a decade of my life with happens to buy me from my father.

"That's not possible." I said not still believing what she said. "He loves me and would never do such. I wasn't sold but married Mark because it was god's will." I said still defending my dad.

Dominic stepped between us. "Kit, start from the beginning." What! He also knew. I shook my head In disbelief.

She tapped the edge of the screen. "Two months before your wedding to Mark, a private contract was signed between your father and a man listed only as J.W. Funds were transferred through a shell trust. Offshore. Cayman-based. It was hidden under a religious development agreement."

I laughed, but it was bitter and full of disbelief. "What does that even mean?"

"It means," Kit said, looking at me like she was reading a crime scene, "that someone paid for you. Legally or not. And your father signed the paperwork."

"Paid for what? I wasn't property. Dominic do I look like a property?" I asked Dominic who shook his head. I smacked my lips them exhaled.

"In this world," Kit said flatly, "you were." I moved backwards. My parents took me as a property not a child.

Dominic touched my shoulder gently. "How much?" My heart skipped immediately he asked that. What value Did my father sell me out for?

Kit typed a few keys. "Two point seven million." My father valued me for Two point seven million. He sold me out cheaply.

I felt sick. "You're saying that was my price?" I had to ask to confirm. I mean two point seven million is too small. I'm worth more than that.

"No. That was the down payment." She said flatly.

I staggered back. "This isn't real."

Kit's voice softened, but only slightly. "I thought that too, until I traced the second transfer. It hit six months after your wedding. Another five million. This time from a private equity account registered under Valence Holdings."

Dominic cursed under his breath. "Valence is one of Mark's subsidiaries."

"Exactly," Kit said. "This wasn't a dowry. It was a transaction."

I couldn't stop shaking. "He told me God chose Mark for me. That our union was spiritual." I said still trying hard to believe. But my father's signature is enough reason.

"Spiritual doesn't come with wire receipts," Kit replied.

Dominic turned to her. "Can you trace it further?"

"I'm already working on it."

I backed away, needing air. Space. Something solid to hold on to. "So I was bought and sold like a stock option." I held the window frames. My eyes outside the room. No I wouldn't cry. Yes I found out that my father sold me but I wouldn't cry.

Kit looked at me with something close to pity. "You weren't just sold. You were used to clean money. That contract? It gave Mark legitimacy. A public wife. LDS purity. He looked like a moral investor. That opened doors."

"My marriage was a cover."

Dominic nodded. "A front."

I turned to face them. "And Jacob?" This deal must have been going on before Jacob died so he should have known a thing or two. Maybe that was why he insisted I go with him to California. Maybe, if I hadn't told my father, I wouldn't have been sold to Mark.

Kit's gaze darkened. "Collateral. He wasn't just in the way. He was a threat to the deal. You were already marked when you met him. They couldn't risk you running."

I swallowed. "So they killed him." I asked, realizing what happened.

"No loose ends." Kit said.

My voice cracked again. "And I was the investment."

Dominic stepped close. "Not anymore, Not now that you have me. "

I looked at him in disbelief. "You still want me to sit at a desk and manage your calendar after this?" I asked because height end up like Jacob. Of he's not careful.

"I want you to understand exactly what you're capable of doing now that you know the truth." He said as he stood up and walked up to me. We were just few inches apart.

"I don't want revenge." I whispered softly as I raised my head to meet his eyes.

"I'm not offering revenge. I'm offering power." His hands sat on my shoulder as he looked down at me.

Kit cleared her throat. "Before you go full Shakespeare in here, you need to see the next file."

I blinked. "There's more?" I removed Dominic's hands from my shoulders.

She turned the monitor toward me again. "You're not the only one."

Dominic leaned in. "What are we looking at?"

Kit pulled up a new screen. Photos. Charts. Dozens of names.

"Your father brokered deals like this for other families too. Quiet girls. Devout. Obedient. Most of them were married off before they turned twenty. All to men in finance, law, politics. Always Mormon. Always clean on paper."

My stomach flipped. "You mean after selling me, he was greedy enough to become a business mediator? How many?"

"Seventeen that I can prove. Probably more."

Dominic ran a hand through his hair. "God. It's a trafficking ring hidden under religious cover."

"They built an empire on it," Kit said. "And your husband? He's not just a participant. He's one of the founding architects."

I sat down hard. "Does my mother know?" Let me just hear that she doesn't.

"She's listed on the charity board for the trust your father used." My heart sank further. Now I know why my father always said that he was a lucky man blessed with 10 girls. I had thought that my elder sisters also married for love and God's will.

My breath caught. "So she knew."

"I doubt she saw the paperwork," Kit said. "But she cashed the checks."

Dominic looked at me. "Eliza. You can't go back. That would be entering pit dig not by your enemi6but family."

"I wasn't planning to."

"I'm serious. You can't call her. Can't warn her. Not yet." He said sternly, a bit of concern in his voice.

"Why?" I asked as I turned to face him.

Kit answered for him. "Because if she panics and tells your father what you know, they'll shut everything down. Burn it all. And then you'll never get proof." Then I recalled what happened Ten years ago, if I hadn't told my father that I was eloping to California.

"I can't just leave my kids in their care."

"You won't," Dominic said. "We'll move them by tonight. And besides they can't harm the bishop's grand children. Can they?"

"I can't say a definite answer concerning that but where are you taking them to?" I asked Dominic.

He looked at Kit. "You still have that property in Aspen?"

She nodded. "Fully wired, isolated. No digital trail." She said her eyes still glued to her system.

"That's where they go."

I struggled to maintain stamina, my limbs barely cooperating. "They're going to wonder why. What do I tell

mother?"

Dominic met my eyes. "Tell her you got a new job and they're giving you housing. Tell her you want the kids close. Keep it clean. Calm. Don't give her anything to question."

"And what if she refuses?" Mom turns out to be a very interrogative person.

Kit tilted her head. "Then we show her the contract."

I stared at the screen again. At my father's signature. The way he had looped the last letter of his name like he was proud of it. My throat tightened.

"I want to burn it all."

"Good," Dominic said. "That's the right place to start."

I turned to Kit. "What do we do first?"

"You gather evidence. You watch. You document. Everything from now on has to be airtight."

Dominic stepped beside me. "And we use my company to build your cover. You'll be on every business call. Every financial move. That way when you speak out, people have to listen."

Kit nodded. "You're not just a victim anymore, Eliza. You're a threat."

That word settled into my chest like heat.

Dominic's phone buzzed.

He glanced at it, frowned, then handed it to Kit. "Tell me that's a glitch." He said slightly panicking.

Kit stared at the message, then hissed through her teeth. "It's not. They know we accessed the files."

"How?" I asked staring at them confused.

She turned her laptop to show us a red bar flashing across the screen. "The trust account just locked itself and pinged an alert to the origin server. That's a hard trace."

"Back to us?"

"Back to whoever opened the file. Meaning you."

I stepped forward. "What happens now"

Kit typed furiously. "I'm wiping everything. But we have a thirty-minute window before they triangulate the IP."

Dominic grabbed my hand. "We have to go. Now."

"We didn't do anything illegal," I said.

"You're not thinking like them yet. They don't care about legal. They care about control. And you just slipped out of the cage."

Kit pulled a hard drive from her laptop and stuffed it in her bag. "I'll contact you from a new drop point. Go dark. Don't use your phones. Don't go back to your suite. I'll text you from a burner when it's safe."

Dominic nodded. "Be careful."

"I always am."

He pulled me toward the elevator. My legs finally caught up with my brain as we moved. "Where are we going?"

"My apartment. No one knows about it."

"And then?" I asked, I'm already scared.

He didn't answer until the doors closed.

"Eliza," he said quietly.

"Yes." I answered darted at the door. Praying silently so we can escape from here safely.

"They're not just after your silence anymore."

I looked up at him. "Then what?"

"They want to erase you." Erase me, that's a huge word. Erase. Meaning elimination. I can't be eliminated

No I'll fight hard this time.