Chapter 17 - The Father Nathan Tried to BuyEric arrived two days later.
Hailey had not seen him in almost a year.
Serena worried the meeting would confuse her.
Instead Hailey ran across Evelyn’s living room and hugged him.
“Dad!”
Eric held her tightly.
Serena watched from several feet away.
Their marriage had failed because they had been too young, too ambitious and too angry.
They had hurt each other.
But Eric had never frightened Hailey.
He had never tried to control Serena’s company.
He had moved to Seattle after remarrying, and contact gradually became less frequent than either parent intended.
Serena had resented him for that.
Now she was grateful for one thing.
When Nathan offered Eric a quarter-million dollars to attack Serena, Eric had refused.
After Hailey went outside with Thomas, Eric handed Serena printed emails.
“Nathan contacted me from a private address.”
The first message said Serena was experiencing severe emotional instability.
Nathan claimed he feared for Hailey.
He wrote that Eric, as Hailey’s biological father, should consider seeking primary custody.
Eric answered:
If Serena is in danger, tell me what doctor is treating her and why no one has contacted me before.
Nathan avoided the question.
Then came the offer.
Nathan described $250,000 as “support for relocation and legal costs.”
Eric replied:
Are you trying to pay me to sue my ex-wife for custody?
Nathan never answered directly.
He wrote:
I’m offering Hailey a stable alternative.
Eric’s last response was simple.
Do not contact me again.
Serena looked up.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Eric sighed.
“That’s the part I’m not proud of.”
She waited.
“You and I barely spoke. Nathan told me you knew he was contacting me.”
“You believed him?”
“For the first message.”
“And after he offered money?”
“I assumed you two were having some ugly marital war.”
“So you stayed out.”
“Yes.”
Serena looked toward Hailey.
“Everybody stayed out.”
Eric accepted the criticism.
“I should have called.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Serena nodded.
She was learning that apologies did not repair everything instantly.
But they were still useful.
Eric gave the messages to Ruiz.
The email strengthened the proof that Nathan had intentionally built a false narrative about Serena’s mental health.
It also showed planning months before the SUV.
The prosecutor added it to the growing case.
That week Nathan’s criminal defense team changed strategy.
They stopped describing the trunk incident as a misunderstanding.
Instead they argued Nathan had suffered an acute emotional breakdown after discovering financial misconduct by Claire.
Serena read the filing.
“He had an emotional breakdown?”
Evelyn nodded.
“The same man who spent a year collecting fake evidence that I was unstable?”
“The irony is noticeable.”
“Can they do that?”
“They can present any legally supportable defense.”
Serena laughed.
Nathan’s attorney now described him as overwhelmed, betrayed and temporarily irrational.
The controlled man in the driveway was disappearing from his own legal story.
Serena realized why.
The evidence was too strong to preserve him.
So Nathan was sacrificing the image he valued most.
Control.
He needed a new explanation.
At the same time, federal investigators joined the financial case because several fraudulent transfers had crossed state lines and used interstate banking systems.
Ruiz remained involved in the state charges.
The financial investigation expanded.
Nathan now faced two systems.
He could not control either.
Daniel finished tracing the lake house.
It could likely be recovered and sold through restitution proceedings.
The frozen accounts remained intact.
Insurance might cover a portion of company losses.
Vale Residential would survive.
Serena called a company-wide meeting.
She stood before nearly two hundred employees.
No lawyers wrote her speech.
“I trusted someone I should not have trusted,” she said.
The room remained silent.
“That person exploited weaknesses in our financial controls and in my personal judgment. I am responsible for fixing the systems that failed.”
She did not call herself responsible for Nathan’s crimes.
That distinction mattered.
“We have recovered significant assets. Our projects remain funded. Payroll is secure. We are cooperating fully with investigators.”
She paused.
“And this company will never again depend on one person’s trust in another person.”
Afterward an employee Serena barely knew approached.
“My mother married someone like that.”
Serena did not know what to say.
The woman smiled sadly.
“Not the money part. The making-everyone-think-she-was-crazy part.”
Serena felt something shift.
Nathan’s methods had felt uniquely engineered.
But the underlying pattern was painfully ordinary.
Isolation.
Documentation without context.
Control disguised as concern.
When Serena returned home, Hailey was waiting in the new reading room.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Dad said Nathan tried to give him money.”
Serena’s stomach tightened.
Eric must have said too much.
“He shouldn’t have told you the details.”
“He didn’t. I heard Grandpa.”
Of course she had.
Hailey looked worried.
“Was Dad going to take me?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he said no.”
Hailey thought about that.
“Did Nathan want everybody to think you were sick?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So people would trust him instead of me.”
Hailey nodded slowly.
Then asked the question Serena had been afraid of.
“Did you trust him?”
Serena sat beside her.
“Yes.”
“Was that bad?”
Serena looked at her daughter.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because trusting someone is not the same as giving them permission to hurt you.”
Hailey leaned against her.
Serena kissed her hair.
Outside, the mansion gates opened for Eric’s rental car.
No sirens.
No shouting.
Just an ordinary departure.
Serena watched until the gate closed.
Nathan had tried to buy Hailey’s father.
He had tried to turn Serena’s father against her.
He had tried to turn doctors and employees into witnesses for a lie.
May you like
But one by one, the relationships he treated like transactions were becoming human again.
And that was something Nathan had never known how to calculate.
Related Stories
