Page 132 of Chasing Simone

He runs his free hand over his tired face before he answers. “Shortly after you left the company, Cynthia came to me with a spreadsheet. I couldn’t make sense of what she was showing me until she explained she was stealing funds from clients. She recalled me saying I wanted to open a firm one day, and she wanted to piggyback on my dream.”

BINGO! We’re finally getting somewhere.

I lean forward in my seat, eager to hear more. “You knew about her embezzling from the firm?”

“Yes. Cynthia wanted to ensure she trapped me with her for good. By telling me she was stealing money, she made me her accomplice.”

Finally, something of value from his confession. “What did you do?”

“What could I do? I couldn’t report her to the cops without exposing the Oldani account. I couldn’t go to the board without risking my job. I was doubly fucked any way you look at it. I tried to convince her to return the money. Lord, how I begged her to get rid of the cash. But Cynthia was delusional, consumed with these grandiose ideas of running away to another country, where I could start my business with her as some sort of trophy wife.”

Trent shakes his head in disgust. “Depressed with losing you, and unable to reason with Cynthia, I sort of floated along in my emotions. When Lorenzo Bianchi’s death made national news, I wondered if Luca would come for the money. He was a wanted man and would need cash to start a new life far away from the states. I prayed every night he would come to relieve me of my burden, but he never showed.”

My throat swells, recalling how I felt those nights following Lorenzo’s death, fearing Luca would come to make good on his threat to take me by force. I shove down my emotions. I’m on a mission to prove Trent’s guilt, and nothing can derail me.

He lips thin as he looks me square in the eyes. “I’ll admit, I fantasized about all the cash sitting in the Oldani account and the freedom it offered. As the months passed, I contemplated ways I could take the money and run. Cynthia’s embezzlement operation gave me the perfect excuse to put my plan into action.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cynthia had given me the passwords to all her accounts, something she did long before the affair, to entice me into her bed. I had access to everything she touched. Her passwords would only change by the next number up—it was never difficult to guess her updated information.”

“How did you use her information to benefit you?” I try hard to keep the desperation out of my voice.

“I still had her spreadsheet of accounts she was targeting. I accessed the accounts using her key codes and made some extensive transfers into her offshore account.”

I feel my eyes widen in my shock. “You triggered the auditing investigation.”

“Cynthia’s actions were going to catch up to her eventually. I just moved things along.”

“And she never suspected you?”

He shakes his head, a sly smile growing on his face. The asshole is proud of himself. “Cynthia never double-checked her work, not wanting to leave a cyber footprint in the firm’s intranet. But I went in on her behalf all the time.”

“You left the trail for whoever the firm hired to audit,” I say, understanding before narrowing my eyes as new questions arise. “I’m not following your logic. You didn’t want to draw attention to the Oldani file, but your actions were drawing attention to everything happening in the firm. You had to know the Oldani file would be subjected to the same scrutiny as all the other accounts.”

“True, but all fingers would point to Cynthia,” he clarifies. “I could play innocent about my client’s true intentions, and Cynthia would be on the hook for letting the account slip through.”

I cock my head, attempting to seem captivated by his reasoning. “So…you took the Oldani funds? When?”

He beams. “It had to be timed perfectly. I couldn’t take it too soon in the investigations and send off alarm bells on Cynthia’s end, but I couldn’t wait for your team to uncover Cynthia’s involvement before I made my move.

“Every night, I’d check to see where you were in your investigation with the archived files. It became more difficult when you began scanning the files on your computer system. So instead, I accessed the accounts using Cynthia’s pass codes, leaving her trail in my wake. I could see what accounts you’d accessed during the day, since each file is time stamped when opened with the key codes of who looked at the accounts.”

“And since you were there when I was assigned my key codes on the team’s first day, you knew my pass codes.”

“Correct. I knew when you were getting close to the file. The day before I suspected you’d come into contact with it, I manually went into the records and removed the hard copy of the client’s info, knowing you’d go to the document control file room to access the current records and find the missing form. I then went in and moved the funds from the Oldani account using Cynthia’s password activation. I moved it to an offshore account before I transferred the account to a new owner in a different offshore account at the opposite end of the world.”

“And you were the new owner of the funds,” I prompt.

“Yes,” he confesses, his eyes swiveling between mine, like he’s trying to gauge my reaction.

My next question will determine Trent’s fate. “What do you plan to do with the money?”

He gives a humorless laugh. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No, it’s not. Do you intend to hand it over to the FBI and clear your name?”

Trent takes his free hand and digs into the inside pocket of his suit coat. He pulls a giant solitaire diamond ring from his pocket, holding it out to me. “I’ve waited a long time to give you this. Had it long before Cynthia came between us. I felt a ring wasn’t enough to win you back, but maybe a nest egg would. The money is ours, my love. It’s for us to start our new life together wherever we want.”

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