Chapter 6 - Uncovering the Sabotage
It was 2:00 AM.
The estate was deadly quiet, saved for the occasional crackle of the fireplace in the main hall. I stood by the large bay window in the guest suite nursery, gently swaying back and forth with Rose resting over my shoulder. She had woken up for her midnight feeding, and after a bottle of warm milk, she was slowly drifting back into dreamland.
I set her gently into the mahogany crib, tucking her blanket around her tiny chest. I stood there for a long moment, watching her faint, sweet breathing, feeling a sense of safety I hadn't felt in nearly a year.
Leaving the room quietly, I pulled my sweater tighter around my shoulders and walked down the dimly lit hallway to get a glass of water from the kitchen.
As I passed the glass doors of the grand library, I noticed a bright light spilling out onto the polished wood floors.
I stopped and looked inside.
Ethan was sitting at his massive oak desk, surrounded by hundreds of printed documents, file folders, and several laptops glowing in the dim room. His suit jacket was thrown over a chair, his tie undone, and his dark hair messy as if he had been running his hands through it for hours.
Standing across from him were two men in dark suits—his private lead investigator, Marcus, and his senior legal counsel.
"Show me the bank routing numbers again," Ethan’s voice rasped through the quiet room. He sounded exhausted, but his tone was laced with a terrifying, predatory focus.
"Here, Mr. Hartwell," Marcus said, sliding a document across the desk. "On August 12th, three weeks after Mrs. Hartwell attempted to visit your mother's estate, a sum of fifty thousand dollars was transferred from your mother’s private asset account to Victoria’s personal offshore account in the Cayman Islands."
I froze outside the door, holding my breath.
"And the medical insurance?" Ethan demanded, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the desk.
"Victoria used her administrator clearance on your corporate benefits portal to mark Mrs. Hartwell as 'Divorced and Uneligible' on September 1st," Marcus revealed. "She altered the system logs so that any bounce-back notifications or legal appeals sent by Saint Jude’s Hospital were automatically marked as spam and routed to a deleted server folder."
Ethan closed his eyes, his breathing heavy and ragged. "She systematically cut off my wife's medical coverage while she was pregnant with my child."
"Yes, sir," Marcus confirmed grimly. "And there’s more. We intercepted two letters sent to your private mail drop in October. Both were from Mrs. Hartwell’s attending physician requesting emergency financial coverage for high-risk obstetric care. Your mother’s head of security personally shredded them before they reached your desk."
BANG!
Ethan slammed his fist down so hard that a crystal decanter on the side table rattled violently.
"They tried to kill them," Ethan whispered, his voice trembling with an agonizing mixture of horror and fury. "If Claire had suffered complications without that care... they would have let my wife and child die in that public ward just to keep my name clean!"
"Mr. Hartwell, legally, we can file criminal charges against Victoria for corporate fraud and unauthorized alteration of medical benefit records," the attorney offered cautiously. "However, regarding your mother... pressing charges against Evelyn Hartwell would create an unprecedented public scandal that could destroy the company's valuation."
Ethan stood up slowly, leaning over the desk, fixing his attorney with an icy glare that made the seasoned lawyer step back.
"I don't give a damn about the valuation," Ethan said, every word dripping with lethal intent. "Draft the indictment files against Victoria tonight. Freeze my mother's access to all family trust dividends immediately. If she wants a single dollar from the Hartwell estate to pay her legal fees, she can explain to a judge why she left her pregnant daughter-in-law to starve."
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I stood outside the glass door, tears silently welling in my eyes.
For months, I had believed Ethan was a cold, heartless monster who had abandoned us for money. But watching him dismantle his own empire in the middle of the night just to avenge the suffering Rose and I had endured... I realized the truth was far more complex, and far more painful.
