“It turns out her cheating on me—and wanting to spend time with her lover—was a blessing in disguise.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. How can a cheating wife be a blessing?”
“After Uncle Ian left my office, it was a struggle to contain my rage and conduct business as usual. When I managed to regain my composure and lose myself in work, I received a phone call that unraveled my world.”
“Who called you?”
“A new bank manager was assigned to our account,” he says. “I thought it was a courtesy call, but it wasn’t. He was calling to inform me I was overdrawn on the business account and I wouldn’t be able to cover the employees’ direct deposit wages and pre-authorize payments to vendors. I argued and told him he was mistaken. I explained I had deposited money on the previous Friday. He told me a large sum had been transferred that morning to a foreign account. I practically laughed in his face. He stood his ground, stating he was looking at the transaction on his screen. Everything in my body was tingling. I requested an urgent meeting.”
“And?”
“I came back from the bank confused and angry. Things weren’t adding up. I confessed everything to Ian, and he suggested I hire an investigator. That was two strikes against my wife, and he felt it was important to find out what other skeletons were hiding in her closet. Demanding an explanation from Thana was pointless. No way was she going to be forthcoming about the discrepancies in our bank accounts. I needed ammunition before confronting her.”
“Private investigators are expensive. I thought the hotel was on shaky ground?”
“Ian fronted me the money,” Daddy says.
Uncle Ian manages all the computer technicians and the team responsible for preventing hackers from stealing students’ personal data at the NYU School of Law. No wonder he would know who to approach to secure the services of a reputable PI.
“Thank God Uncle Ian was able to help.”
Daddy nods. “I’m not her only victim,” he says.
“No way.”
“The investigators tracked down three former employers she embezzled money from?—”
“Why didn’t those employers say anything when you called to check out her references?”
“They’re all married men,” he says.
“So?”
“Thana manipulated them into having an affair, which she meticulously recorded as an insurance policy. She was blackmailing them. They paid her off to buy her silence. Since I was a widower, she used another tactic to steal from me.”
“What an evil witch.” I’m raging with anger. “She conned her way into our family.”
“She did, but I’m her last victim,” Daddy says.
“What do you mean by that?”
“By the time Thana came back from her little lovers’ getaway trip, the investigators had placed surveillance equipment in the hotel and at our house. There were detectors on all the electronic devices—phones, laptops, and computers. Extra cameras were installed in every blind spot of the hotel. And, they requested access to our archive of surveillance footage. My wife had no idea she was walking into a trap. We were ready for Thana Annunziata to hang herself. It didn’t take long for the truth to come out.”
“What did they find out?”
I’m eager to know how the bitch duped my father.
“Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, there was no reason for me to suspect my wife was backstabbing me. In her role as accountant, Thana had access to our bank statements, and she was the front person for our vendor relationships. Giving her more signing authority made sense—we were married. I trusted her. As I was getting back on my feet, I never changed the signing authority on our accounts. I didn’t think I had to. According to the investigators’ findings, she started skimming money from the accounts while I was still in the hospital, recovering from the heart attack?—”
“What a lowlife.”
Daddy smirks and nods. “A little more digging revealed she was also faking vendor payments and pocketing the money.”
I let out a strangled grunt of anger.
Not that I condone violence, but right now, I want to fly back to New York and kill the bitch.
I rub a hand over my face and let out a long sigh.
