Chapter 2 - The House Money
Marcus’s expression answered before his mouth did.
Tasha held the phone tighter.
“What house money?”
“There isn’t any house money.”
“Then why did you write it?”
“That conversation isn’t what you think.”
Denise stared at him.
“Every guilty man in America needs a new sentence.”
Marcus ignored her.
“Tasha, put my phone down and let me explain this without everybody jumping to conclusions.”
Tasha gave a stunned laugh.
“My niece is pregnant by my husband, and you’re worried about conclusions?”
Kiara wiped her cheeks.
“Aunt Tasha—”
“No.”
Kiara recoiled.
Tasha regretted the sharpness instantly but did not take it back.
“Not yet.”
She returned to the message thread.
Marcus stepped closer.
“Tasha.”
“Back up.”
The tone stopped him.
Tasha scrolled around the reference to the house.
There were photographs of documents.
One was a business registration.
Another showed a transfer confirmation for $12,500.
A third contained part of a home-equity statement.
Her home-equity statement.
She enlarged it.
The last four digits belonged to the line of credit Tasha had opened four months after Marcus’s release.
Marcus had told her he needed equipment for the residential restoration company they planned to build together.
A second chance, he had called it.
A future they could own.
Tasha had borrowed against the home she purchased while he was incarcerated because she believed giving Marcus a legitimate business would protect him from returning to the mistakes that sent him away.
“Why does Kiara have pictures of my HELOC statements?”
Kiara looked toward Marcus.
“Don’t look at him,” Tasha said. “Look at me.”
Kiara’s shoulders folded inward.
“He asked me to help with the bookkeeping.”
“I knew that part.”
“No. I mean before.”
Tasha went still.
“Before what?”
“Before he came home.”
Denise stepped toward her daughter.
“How long before?”
Kiara pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“Almost a year.”
Tasha whispered, “A year.”
Marcus spoke quickly.
“It was business planning. That’s all it was at first.”
“At first,” Tasha repeated.
Marcus realized his mistake.
Tasha scrolled again.
There were discussions about vendor accounts and credit.
Marcus had been incarcerated for federal wire fraud connected to fraudulent construction billing. Tasha had always accepted the version he gave her: a business partner had manipulated invoices, Marcus had been reckless, he had signed things without fully understanding the scheme, and prosecutors had made an example of him.
He had pleaded guilty.
Eight years.
She had spent those years believing guilt could exist beside redemption.
Now she stared at messages discussing vendor invoices before his release.
“Who is KJ Supplies?”
Silence.
Tasha looked at Kiara.
Her niece’s name was Kiara Johnson.
“KJ.”
Kiara nodded weakly.
“It was an LLC.”
“You created a company?”
“Marcus said he couldn’t set everything up while he was incarcerated.”
Denise looked horrified.
“You helped him make a company from prison?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be fake.”
Marcus cut in.
“It wasn’t fake.”
Tasha opened another image.
KJ SUPPLIES LLC.
Registered agent: Kiara Johnson.
Formation date: thirteen months before Marcus’s release.
She felt cold.
“What was it supplying?”
Kiara whispered, “Nothing at first.”
“Nothing.”
Marcus moved toward the sofa.
“Tasha, listen. Contractors use different entities all the time.”
“You were not a contractor. You were inmate number 46217-018.”
His mouth tightened.
That number hurt him.
Good, she thought.
She hated herself for thinking it.
Tasha tapped through the images.
Several invoices appeared.
KJ Supplies had billed the restoration company she and Marcus created after his release.
$4,800.
$7,600.
$9,250.
Materials.
Equipment rentals.
Administrative consulting.
Tasha recognized two invoices because she had approved payments while working late at her hospital administrative job.
Marcus told her KJ was a minority-owned supplier recommended by a friend.
“You made me pay her.”
Kiara shook her head urgently.
“I didn’t know where every invoice came from.”
“But you owned the company.”
“I opened the account because he said he needed—”
“You opened it.”
“Yes.”
“And money from my company went into it.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Kiara stared down.
“How much, Kiara?”
Marcus interrupted.
“We can go through the books.”
Tasha spun toward him.
“You shut your mouth.”
He did.
Kiara whispered, “A little over thirty thousand.”
Denise sat down.
Tasha felt the number like pressure behind her eyes.
“Thirty thousand dollars.”
“Not all of it stayed there.”
“Where did it go?”
“Some went back to the business.”
“How?”
“I transferred money when Marcus told me.”
“To where?”
Kiara looked at him again.
Tasha slammed the phone onto the table.
“Stop looking at him like he still gets to give you instructions!”
Kiara burst into tears.
The shout frightened Tasha more than anyone.
She lowered her voice.
“Where did it go?”
“There was another account.”
Marcus’s jaw flexed.
Denise saw it.
“What account?”
Kiara rubbed her hands over her face.
“Marcus said it was for equipment purchases.”
“What account?”
“A checking account under a company called Second Line Development.”
Tasha had never heard the name.
Marcus closed his eyes.
Tasha picked up his phone again and searched.
Second Line Development appeared dozens of times.
Then she found a photograph of a bank balance.
$48,117.
The date was last month.
Her knees almost buckled.
She sat in the armchair.
The room around her was suddenly painfully familiar.
The sofa Marcus chose after release.
The framed photograph from their tenth anniversary.
The rug she replaced because he said he wanted their home to feel new.
All purchased inside a house he had apparently discussed as a source of money with her niece.
“How much of that belongs to me?”
Marcus said, “Tasha, it’s business capital.”
She looked up.
“How much?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No. Taxes are complicated. Marriage is complicated. Forty-eight thousand dollars in an account your wife doesn’t know exists is stealing.”
“You don’t know where that money came from.”
“Then tell me.”
Marcus stared at her.
He could not.
Tasha scrolled to older messages.
A phrase appeared repeatedly.
When the house closes.
After she signs.
Once she refinances.
Tasha remembered Marcus sitting beside her at the kitchen island four months ago, placing his hand over hers.
This is the last thing I’ll ever ask you to risk for me.
She had signed a $95,000 home-equity line.
She had watched him cry afterward.
She had thought the tears were gratitude.
Tasha looked at Kiara.
“Did you know I borrowed against this house?”
Kiara nodded.
“When?”
“Before you signed.”
The answer struck harder than the pregnancy.
Tasha rose.
“You knew.”
“Aunt Tasha—”
“You knew I was risking my house.”
“I thought the business was real.”
“But you knew Marcus was sleeping with you.”
Kiara sobbed.
“Yes.”
“And you watched me sign.”
Nobody moved.
Tasha’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“You both stood there and watched me put my home on the table.”
Marcus finally spoke.
“You were never going to lose the house.”
Tasha looked at him.
“How could you possibly promise that?”
He hesitated.
One second.
Two.
Then Denise’s eyes narrowed.
“Because there’s something else.”
Marcus said nothing.
Tasha opened the phone’s document folder.
Near the top was a scanned PDF.
Its filename was simple.
DEED_DRAFT_FINAL.pdf
Tasha touched the screen.
The document opened.
Her address appeared at the top.
And beneath it were two names she had never expected to see together.
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
Marcus Reed.
Kiara Johnson.
