CHAPTER 125: FRAME

~CASSANDRA~

"Cassandra, sit down," my father said in a calm but irritated voice. He leaned back in his chair, the dim light of his office catching the deep lines on his face. "You’re wearing a hole in my floor."

But I couldn’t stop pacing. My heart hammered so hard I thought it might burst from my chest. Daniel’s accusation played on an endless loop in my mind: the pills, the receipt predating the crash, his furious promise to expose everything to Layla.

"You faked everything, Cass. I’m done."

Then nothing. His phone had gone dead. No trace of him anywhere. What if he’d already reached her? What if my whole carefully constructed scheme was crumbling because of one stupid mistake?

"I can’t sit, Dad!" I whirled on my father, my voice cracking with barely contained panic. "He knows, Dad. About the abortion pills, about the staged miscarriage to frame Layla; if he tells her, the entire fraud case collapses. We lose everything. The lawsuits, the revenge, our credibility. Everything!"

"You need to breathe," my father said, still sounding calm. I couldn’t help but wonder how he manages to not panic in situations like this. "Hyperventilating won’t solve anything."

"He was driving from upstate, heading straight to her house. What if he’s there now? What if he’s already told her everything?" My voice rose to a near-shriek.

He leaned forward. "My PI has been tracking him. They’ve traced his car to a rest stop, but it was abandoned. There was blood on the steering wheel."

"Blood?" My knees weakened, and I gripped the edge of his desk for support. "Is he dead? Or did someone grab him? God, if he’s alive and talks to Layla..."

"If he’s alive, we’ll find him before he can do any damage."

"And what about Erica? We still don’t know where she is." I demanded. "She hasn’t answered my calls in days. She was supposed to update me on those bugs she planted, on what Layla and Axel were planning. Radio silence!"

My father leaned back in his chair, intertwining his fingers. "Calm down, Cassandra."

"Calm down? Erica’s gone dark. No calls, no texts, nothing. She was supposed to be our inside source, and now she’s vanished just like Daniel. This is all falling apart, Dad. Don’t you see that?"

He sighed heavily, rubbing his temples like I was the source of his headache. "Erica’s probably laying low after she got caught. I warned you not to trust her completely. That woman’s jealousy over Axel was always going to be a liability."

"What are you talking about?"

"She tried to seduce him at his house. Axel probably threw her out. She ran before he could have her arrested."

My stomach dropped. "How can you be so sure?"

He simply shrugged. "It doesn’t matter now. Erica’s either in hiding or..." He made a vague gesture. "Taken care of."

"Taken care of?" I stared at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means she’s not our main concern at the moment." His tone was flat. "Now focus. We have bigger issues. What do we do about Daniel and Layla?"

I resumed pacing, my mind racing through scenarios, each worse than the last. "We need to find Daniel before he talks. And if we can’t find him..."

"We assume the worst," he cut in smoothly. "We operate under the assumption he’s already told Layla everything, or will soon. Which means we need to hit her harder, distract her from Daniel’s story."

"How?"

"Remember that sniper photo at her Eclipse Beauty launch? The one that terrified her?"

I nodded.

"We do it again. Escalate it. A death threat, something tangible enough to make her paranoid, to make her focus on immediate survival instead of investigating Daniel’s claims."

"That could work," I said, my breathing starting to even out as the plan took shape. "Keep her off-balance, focused on staying alive instead of building a case against me."

"But we need more than just threats," my father continued, standing and moving to the window. "We need permanent stakes."

"What do you mean?"

He turned to face me, his expression hard. "You remember how we played Erica’s story? The mafia boyfriend and all?"

"Of course. I planned that."

"Exactly." He moved closer, his voice dropping. "We do the same to Layla and Axel. But this time, we make it real."

"I’m listening."

"We frame them. Put words on the street that Eclipse Beauty is laundering mafia money. Tie it to cartel operations, drug trafficking, whatever will get the right people’s attention."

My eyes widened as I understood. "The mafia groups we have connections with through our less... legitimate business partners."

"Precisely. We leak the info to them, make it look like Layla and Axel have been stealing from cartel money, cutting into their territory. These people don’t play around with perceived threats to their operations."

"They’ll send people after them," I breathed, the implications hitting me. "Real collectors. Real danger."

"While Layla and Axel are running from actual hit men, they won’t have time to investigate your fraud. They’ll be too busy trying to stay alive. And in the chaos, we find Daniel and... handle the situation."

"Handle it how?"

Charles’s expression didn’t change. "However it needs to be handled. The important thing is that he doesn’t testify, and Layla stays too distracted to build a case against you."

I felt a chill run down my spine, but I pushed it aside. This was survival. Everything I’d worked for, everything I’d sacrificed... I wasn’t going to lose it because Daniel suddenly grew a conscience.

"What about the court case?" I asked. "Even with Layla distracted, the trial’s still coming up."

"Let me worry about the trial. Judge Thornton still owes me favors, and I have other leverage we haven’t used yet. Your job is to make sure Daniel stays quiet and Layla stays too terrified to mount an effective legal defense."

"And if Daniel’s already told her everything?"

"Then we make sure no one believes him. A distraught man who abandoned his pregnant wife, who’s been acting erratically... his word against yours. Especially if he conveniently can’t be found to testify."

The implication was clear, and I felt bile rise in my throat. But I swallowed it down. This was war. Layla had started this by refusing to know her place, by building her success on what should have been mine.

"Do it," I said. "Set everything in motion. The intel, the cartel connections, all of it. I want Layla and Axel running scared."

"Consider it done."