At My Washington Wedding, My Fiancé’s Mistress Fell Down the Stairs on Purpose and Framed Me—All So She Could Run Away With Him, But the Security Footage Exposed...

I walked out of the lounge into the freezing Washington rain, my hands shaking so hard I could barely open the car door.

Colin Vance wasn't just a dirty businessman. He was a murderer.

When I slid into the passenger seat, Arthur Sterling was sitting in the back, headphones pulled over his silver hair, listening to the live audio feed transmitted from the microphone hidden in my bag.

"Did you get it?" I asked, my voice shaking as I turned to look at him.

Arthur took off the headphones, his face grim, lined with deep disgust. "We got his confession on the corporate espionage and the extortion. But the admission regarding your father's death was clever—he phrased it as an 'unfortunate necessity' rather than an explicit admission of poisoning. A defense attorney could argue he was talking about a aggressive business maneuver."

"It's not enough to arrest him for murder," I gasped, tears finally spilling over my lashes. "He killed my father, Arthur! He killed him for land!"

"We cannot strike him with a hammer yet, Eleanor," Arthur said firmly, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "If we go to the police now with just this recording, Vance Capital's legal team will tie it up in pre-trial motions for five years, and Colin will remain free. We must draw him into a position where he leaves physical, undeniable proof."

"How?" I wiped my eyes, pulling myself together. "He thinks he has me terrified. He thinks I'm going to surrender the waterfront lease."

"Then let him think he's winning," Arthur said, a cold, predatory glint appearing in his old eyes. "Colin Vance wants the Potomac Waterfront. We are going to give him the illusion that he is buying it—at a private, high-stakes auction at the Whitmore Estate this Friday."

"An auction?" I asked.

"Yes," Arthur explained. "We invite Vance Capital, along with four of the largest federal defense contractors in the city, to bid on the master development lease. Colin will be desperate to outbid them. He will be forced to use his firm's illegal slush accounts—the ones tied to the offshore accounts he used to pay off the medical examiner who signed your father's false death certificate."

"We trap him financially while the FBI traces the money," I realized, the picture suddenly becoming crystal clear.

"Precisely," Arthur nodded. "And to make sure Colin feels completely secure... we are going to hire a very special consultant to assist us."

"Who?"

Arthur pulled a tablet from his briefcase and turned it toward me.

On the screen was a mugshot of Savannah Pierce, taken three days ago at the central booking facility.

"Miss Pierce is currently facing five years for felony filing of a false police report," Arthur said smoothly. "Her bail is set at half a million dollars—money Nathan Kingsley no longer has. I spoke with her court-appointed attorney an hour ago. Savannah is very bitter about being left in a cell while the men who used her walk free. She is ready to talk."