“Yeah, I’ve got the church money lined up. Calvin’s easy. He’d hand me the keys to the kingdom if I quoted two Bible verses and wore the right tie.”
A woman near the front gasped.
My father went rigid.
On the recording, Trent laughed.
“That fund alone buys me breathing room. And Dominique? Dominique signs whatever I put in front of her. I already leveraged the clinic. She still thinks we’re expanding.”
The audio rolled on.
No graphic detail. No theater. No need.
He admitted the second mortgage.
He admitted the gambling debt.
He admitted using Dominique’s credit and his affair apartment as if they were both just line items in a more complicated inconvenience.
When the clip ended, silence hit harder than the sound had.
Dominique stood up too fast, chair legs screeching.
She looked at Trent not like a wife seeing betrayal for the first time, but like a woman seeing the floor vanish under her own feet.
“You mortgaged my clinic?”
Trent stood too, hands up.
“Baby, listen, I can explain.”
“You mortgaged my clinic?”
He tried to move toward her.
She slapped him once.
Sharp. Clean. Humiliating.
The sound cracked through the ballroom.
Several women actually recoiled.