Chapter 5 - The House That Was No Longer Mine|
I didn't return to the house that night.
Ethan was too injured to leave the hospital, Vanessa was moved to a secured room, and two police officers were assigned to the corridor after the threatening message was reported. Ethan's security chief, Marcus Reed, arrived before dawn and promised to investigate.
I trusted none of them.
At nine in the morning, I drove to the house with a police escort. I had lived there for five years, and every corner held memories I now questioned. The kitchen where Ethan made my coffee. The staircase where he kissed me before business trips. The bedroom where he once promised that nothing in his world would ever hurt me.
The front door had been forced open.
Inside, drawers had been emptied, books lay scattered across the floor, and the small safe in Ethan's study stood open.
Nothing valuable had been taken.
My jewelry remained untouched. The expensive watches were still in their display case. Even the cash inside a desk drawer was there.
Someone had searched for something specific.
I walked into the study and remembered the brass key from the envelope.
A small lock sat beneath the bottom drawer of Ethan's desk. It was nearly invisible unless someone knew where to look.
The key fit.
Inside was a flash drive and a folded document bearing my name.
The document was a medical consent form from a private fertility clinic. It listed Ethan as the patient and showed a series of appointments from eight months earlier.
I frowned.
Ethan had never told me he visited a fertility clinic.
Beneath the form was a handwritten note.
If Richard finds the original ledger, he will destroy every person connected to it.
The flash drive contained security footage, financial spreadsheets, and a recording labeled FAMILY TRUST—FINAL MEETING.
I pressed play.
Ethan's father appeared on the screen, looking older than I remembered from family photographs. Richard sat across from him. A third man stood near the window, his face turned away from the camera.
“If the ledger becomes public,” Richard said, “the entire organization collapses.”
Ethan's father replied, “Then it should collapse. I won't let you use my son's name to hide what you've done.”
The recording ended abruptly.
A sound came from upstairs.
I froze.
“Hello?”
Footsteps moved across the floor above me.
I reached for my phone and called the escort officer. Before he answered, a man appeared at the top of the staircase.
He wore a black jacket and held a small handgun.
“Give me the drive,” he said.
I backed toward the study door.
“I don't have anything.”
He smiled.
“Doctor, don't make me hurt you.”
I threw a heavy glass paperweight at his face and ran.
The gunshot shattered a framed photograph behind me. I reached the front door just as the officers rushed inside.
The intruder escaped through the back garden.
I was shaking when Marcus arrived minutes later.
He examined the broken glass, then looked at the flash drive in my hand.
“Mrs. Blackwood,” he said quietly, “you need to understand something.”
“What?”
“Your husband didn't bring you into his world.”
May you like
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Someone in his family has been trying to push you out of it for years.”
