Constance's Ally
Chapter 06 - Constance's Ally
Priya's deeper investigation uncovered exactly the connection Richard had feared, financial records showing a series of payments from Constance Mercer's personal accounts to Greg Ashworth, beginning precisely twelve years earlier, well before Greg's official hiring date at the company.
"Your mother was paying Greg privately for nearly two years before he ever appeared on your company's payroll," Priya told Richard, presenting the timeline. "The payments correspond almost exactly to the period during which your marriage was deteriorating."
"She hired him," Richard said slowly. "Not to manage the company. To help her manage me."
"That's my assessment," Priya said. "The fabricated evidence your wife described, the bank statements, the manufactured conversations, would have required someone with specific financial expertise and considerable access to personal information about both of you. Greg's background in corporate finance, before he moved into retail management, matches that profile precisely."
Richard sat with the full, devastating shape of the conspiracy finally, completely visible, understanding now that his own mother hadn't acted alone in destroying his marriage, but had recruited and positioned a skilled accomplice specifically for that purpose, then rewarded him afterward with a senior position in the very company the marriage's destruction was designed to protect.
"She wanted Sarah gone badly enough to hire someone to make it happen," Richard said. "And then she gave him a career in my company as payment. Ten years of watching him walk through my own stores, thinking he'd simply earned his way there."
"I believe that's exactly what happened," Priya confirmed. "Which also explains why Greg felt comfortable telling his own son he owned the store. He apparently believed his position was unassailable, given how deeply he understood the specific secret connecting him to your mother."
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Richard thought of Mark, of the quiet, composed dignity his son had shown in the showroom that afternoon, entirely unaware that the boy bullying him had been armed with a lie that traced its roots all the way back to the deliberate destruction of his own parents' marriage.
"I want my mother and Greg confronted together," he said. "Formally, with legal counsel present. I want them both to understand this is no longer a secret either of them controls."
