My Daughter Is In A Coma After Her Husband Cut Her Brake Lines For A $10m Payout. He Didn’t Know She Was Pregnant With His Child. I Am A Billionaire With A Very Particular Set Of Skills. How Should I Execute My Revenge?

The Confrontation Plan

The next day, I left the hospital for the first time since arriving. Vincent picked me up in a black SUV and drove me to Marina del Rey.

“You sure about this, Marcus? We could turn everything over to the police right now. Let them handle it.”

“The police will handle part of it, Vincent, but not all of it. Derek Mercer took everything from my daughter. Her trust, her career, her money, nearly her life. The law will punish him for the crimes he committed. But I’m going to make sure he understands what he really lost.”,

We parked on the dock about a hundred yards from a stunning 60-foot yacht named the Golden Hour. I could see movement on the deck. Two figures. Derek and his mistress, presumably.

“Is everything in place?” I asked.

“Everything. The SEC complaint was filed this morning. The FBI has opened an investigation, and I spoke with your contacts at First National and Chase. Derek’s accounts will be frozen by end of business today.”

“The Cayman accounts?”

“That took some doing, but yes, we found a cooperative judge in the islands who was very interested in money laundering evidence. Those accounts are locked down as of two hours ago.”

“And Vanessa Callaway?”

Vincent smiled grimly.

“That’s where it gets interesting. Turns out Vanessa’s real estate empire is built on a foundation of fraud. She’s been running a Ponzi scheme for years, using new investor money to pay off old investors.”

“Derek wasn’t just her lover. He was feeding her clients from Mercer Capital Partners. My estimate is that she owes her investors somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million she doesn’t have. So when Derek’s money disappears, she goes down with him. They’re tied together financially in ways they probably don’t even realize. When one falls, they both fall.”,

Watching Him Fall

I watched the yacht bob gently in the water. On the deck, Derek Mercer was laughing at something, a champagne glass in his hand. He was tanned, relaxed, happy. He thought he had gotten away with everything.

“I want to talk to him,” I said.

“Marcus, not now. Not today. I want him to feel it first. I want him to feel everything crumbling around him. And then, when he has nothing left, when he understands that his entire world has been destroyed, I want him to know who did it and why.”

Vincent nodded.

“There’s one more thing you should know. Rebecca’s prenuptial agreement. Derek signed one. Remember?”

“Of course. I insisted on it.”

“Well, Derek apparently thought he could get around it. He’s been pressuring Rebecca for months to dissolve the agreement. She refused. That prenup has an infidelity clause, Marcus. If Derek cheats, he loses everything. The house, the cars, the investments, all of it reverts to Rebecca.”,

“He knows that. That’s why he tried to kill her before divorcing her.”

“Exactly. But here’s the thing. The prenup also has a clause about what happens if either party is incapacitated due to the actions of the other. Derek’s lawyers clearly didn’t read that section carefully enough. If we can prove Derek was responsible for Rebecca’s injuries, not only does he lose everything in the divorce, he’s also liable for punitive damages up to three times the total marital assets.”

I allowed myself a small smile, the first one since this nightmare began.

“How much are the total marital assets worth, including the value of the investment firm, the real estate, the stock portfolio?”

“Somewhere around $18 million, maybe 20. So Derek could be liable for up to $60 million, give or take.”

I looked at the yacht one more time. Derek was kissing Vanessa now, without a care in the world.

“Burn it all down, Vincent. Every last piece of it.”

The Collapse

The destruction of Derek Mercer happened in stages. The first thing he noticed was the credit cards. That afternoon, he took Vanessa to lunch at a restaurant in Beverly Hills. When he tried to pay, his card was declined. He tried another, same result.

Embarrassed, he excused himself to call his bank. I know this because Vincent had someone at the next table. Derek learned that his accounts had been frozen pending a federal investigation. He learned that his firm, Mercer Capital Partners, was being audited by the SEC.

He learned that his business partner, a man named Graham Foster, had resigned that morning and was cooperating with investigators. Within an hour, Derek’s phone was ringing off the hook. Clients wanting to know if their money was safe. Lawyers advising him not to say anything.

His accountant sounding panicked, asking about discrepancies in the books. Vanessa, to her credit, stuck by him for almost 24 hours. Then the FBI showed up at her door with a warrant for her financial records.

They also informed her that her accounts had been frozen as part of the same investigation that was targeting Derek. The engagement was off by nightfall.,

Derek tried to run. He booked a flight to Mexico City, perhaps thinking he could somehow access his offshore accounts and disappear. But when he arrived at LAX, federal marshals were waiting for him. He was arrested on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering.

Bail was set at $2 million. Money Derek didn’t have. Money he couldn’t access. He spent the night in a Los Angeles County jail cell, sleeping on a thin mattress, wearing an orange jumpsuit, wondering how his perfect plan had fallen apart so completely. He still didn’t know.