Chapter 14 - Project LanternProject Lantern had never been completed.
That was the first important fact.
The second was that Malcolm had never told Sienna it existed.
Jonah retrieved the archived presentation.
The proposal was dated five months before Malcolm filed for divorce.
Westbridge Development would retain existing liabilities.
A new entity—Lantern Development Partners—would receive rights to future projects, selected management contracts, and key employees.
Sienna read the slide twice.
“So old Westbridge keeps the debt.”
“Yes.”
“And new Lantern receives the growth.”
“That was the proposal.”
“Who owns Lantern?”
“It was never fully formed.”
“Proposed owners?”
Jonah turned the page.
Malcolm Vale — 70%.
A management trust — 20%.
Strategic partner — 10%.
“Who was the strategic partner?”
“Blank.”
Sienna looked at him.
“Bianca?”
“We don’t know.”
“Who prepared the presentation?”
“Malcolm and a consultant.”
“Which consultant?”
Jonah hesitated.
“Larkspur.”
Sienna laughed softly.
Of course.
“Was Everline invested in Westbridge then?”
“Yes.”
“Would moving projects out have required our consent?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Did we give it?”
“No.”
“Did it happen?”
“As far as we can tell, no.”
Sienna sat back.
“So this is evidence of a plan, not an executed diversion.”
“Correct.”
That distinction mattered.
Sienna wanted to hate Malcolm cleanly.
The documents kept refusing simplicity.
Project Lantern might show intent.
It might show nothing more than aggressive restructuring that lawyers later stopped.
She called Malcolm.
He answered quickly.
“Project Lantern.”
Silence.
Then:
“Where did you hear that?”
“Wrong question again.”
“Sienna.”
“What was it?”
“A restructuring concept.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You weren’t involved in Westbridge operations.”
“My firm was financing Westbridge.”
“It never happened.”
“Because?”
“Counsel said Everline consent would be required.”
“And?”
“And I dropped it.”
Sienna’s voice hardened.
“You dropped it because you couldn’t move assets without telling me.”
“That’s one way to say it.”
“What’s the other?”
“I was exploring how to make the company less dependent on you.”
“While married to me.”
“Yes.”
“And while sleeping with Bianca.”
Malcolm sighed.
“I’m not going to keep apologizing every time you say that.”
“I don’t need an apology. I need facts.”
He was quiet.
She continued.
“Was Bianca the strategic partner?”
“No.”
“Was Larkspur going to own equity?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“I hadn’t decided.”
“Did Bianca help design the plan?”
“She knew about it.”
“Did she suggest moving future projects?”
“Yes.”
Sienna gripped the phone.
“Why?”
“Because she thought Westbridge would never grow while Everline controlled the financing.”
“And you agreed.”
“At the time.”
“What changed?”
“Reality.”
Sienna waited.
Malcolm said, “My lawyers told me it would trigger defaults, lawsuits, and probably destroy the company. So I stopped.”
For once, his explanation matched the archived legal notes.
Sienna hated that too.
Truth was harder when villains occasionally did the legally correct thing.
“Who sent me the anonymous message?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bianca?”
“Probably.”
“Why?”
“Because she wants you to believe I planned everything.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
Malcolm’s voice sharpened.
“I did plenty. I cheated. I hid the Calder Ridge term sheet because I knew it would complicate the divorce. I told Bianca to split invoices. I approved expenses I should never have approved. But I did not forge board minutes. I did not create fake invoices. And I did not shove Nolan’s face toward his breakfast.”
Sienna went silent.
Malcolm continued.
“If you want to destroy me, use what I actually did.”
“I don’t want to destroy you.”
He laughed.
“You froze my company.”
“I froze funding after discovering compliance problems.”
“You reopened the divorce.”
“My lawyers are reviewing whether your disclosures were fraudulent.”
“You took my son.”
“A judge restricted you after watching what happened.”
Malcolm breathed heavily.
Sienna lowered her voice.
“The fact that consequences arrived at the same time does not mean I invented them.”
He said nothing.
She ended the call.
That evening, forensic analysis of the backdated board minutes produced another result.
The documents had been created from Bianca’s user account.
But Malcolm’s digital signature had been inserted into two.
The signature image came from an older PDF.
Not a live signature.
Jonah called.
“This is serious.”
“Yes.”
“We found the source file. It was a 2022 vendor agreement.”
Sienna looked at the report.
“So his signature image was copied.”
“Likely.”
“Can we identify who did it?”
“The file creation traces to Bianca’s credentials.”
“Could someone else use them?”
“Yes.”
Sienna smiled grimly.
“Now you sound like Malcolm.”
“Evidence is evidence.”
“Good.”
The next morning Malcolm’s attorney received the same forensic finding through discovery.
Malcolm stared at it.
For the first time, he possessed proof that Bianca had done something without his authorization.
He drove directly to the hotel where she was staying.
Bianca opened the door wearing a robe.
“What are you doing here?”
Malcolm held up the report.
“You forged my signature into board minutes.”
She looked at the paper.
Then at him.
“No.”
“The files came from your account.”
“I prepared draft minutes.”
“Six months late.”
“To memorialize disclosures that happened.”
“They didn’t happen.”
“You talked about Larkspur all the time.”
“Not to the board.”
“That’s your fault.”
“You inserted my signature.”
She crossed her arms.
“It was an administrative convenience.”
Malcolm stared at her.
“You understand that isn’t a sentence normal people say after forging someone’s signature.”
Her face hardened.
“You want normal?”
“Yes.”
“Normal is you taking responsibility for building a system where everyone was expected to make your problems disappear.”
He flinched.
“You told me to keep things away from Sienna.”
“I told you to avoid unnecessary delays.”
“You wanted Bianca to solve it.”
She pointed at herself.
“You wanted your girlfriend to make your divorce easier, your wife to make your house beautiful, your vendor to make your project cheaper, and your partner to make your ex-wife irrelevant.”
Malcolm’s face drained.
“And when all those roles contradicted each other?”
Bianca smiled bitterly.
“You looked away.”
He had come expecting confession.
Instead, she had given him something worse.
A description of himself he could not easily deny.
Then Bianca added:
“But if you think I am going down alone, you still haven’t understood anything.”
She reached for a folder.
Inside was a printed chain of text messages.
Malcolm recognized his own number.
Bianca placed the first page in his hands.
At the top, a message he had sent two years earlier:
Sienna will give up the equity if she thinks fighting me hurts Nolan. Keep pressure on the valuation.
Malcolm read it.
Then closed his eyes.
May you like
Bianca whispered:
“Tell your therapist about that.”
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