Chapter 4 - THE TRAP IS SET
Victoria Vance didn’t miss a beat. Her smile widened just a fraction, her sharp green eyes sweeping across the room—taking in Caroline’s rigid posture, Samuel’s steady stance, and Hannah sitting comfortably by the fire in her oversized sweatpants.
"Oh?" Victoria’s laugh sounded like crystal wind chimes, bright and entirely hollow. "Talking about me? I hope it’s good. Though, looking at the gloomy faces in here, I suspect something dreadful has happened. Is the old plumbing acting up again?"
"Not the plumbing, Victoria," Ethan said, taking a slow, deliberate step toward her. He didn't look like a man who had been kneeling in regret five minutes ago; he looked like a CEO about hostilely take over a competitor's firm. "The server security logs from the fourteenth floor. They came in from IT an hour ago."
Victoria’s posture remained unyielding, but a microscopic twitch in the corner of her left eye betrayed her. "Server logs? Ethan, darling, what are you talking about? I’m an executive, not a systems administrator."
"True," Ethan agreed smoothly, stopping three feet away from her. "You aren't a tech person. Which is why you made a rookie mistake. You used your own active executive ID badge to bypass the firewall before uploading those forged financial documents to my desktop. The digital fingerprint has your name stamped on it in bright red ink."
For a single second, the mask slipped. Victoria’s face went chalk white, her eyes darting toward the open library doors as if calculating her chances of outrunning them in her designer heels. But recovery was her specialty. She smoothed the lapel of her trench coat, letting out a heavy, disappointed sigh.
"Oh, Ethan," she murmured, shaking her head with an air of profound pity. "You are letting your emotions cloud your judgment entirely. That little caregiver has you so wrapped around her finger you’re hallucinating a corporate conspiracy."
"It’s not a hallucination, Ms. Vance," Hannah said, standing up from her armchair. She walked over to the mahogany coffee table, picking up the printed logs and holding them out. "I might not be a high-powered CEO, but I know how to read a date, a time, and a badge ID. Your badge was scanned at the fourteenth-floor server room door at 8:42 AM yesterday. Exactly four minutes before the files appeared on Ethan’s computer."
Victoria turned her icy glare onto Hannah, her voice dropping all its honeyed pretense. "You are a glorified nursemaid, a nobody from a trailer park in Worcester working double shifts to pay off your brother’s community college debts. Do you honestly think anyone in Boston corporate circles is going to believe you over me?"
"They will when the board sees the wire transfers," Samuel spoke up, stepping forward from the shadows near the bookshelf. He held up his own tablet, displaying a banking ledger. "Ten thousand dollars transferred yesterday afternoon from a shell account registered under Vance Global to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands... intended for the very private investigator who manufactured those fake bank statements."
The room went dead silent. The fire snapped in the grate, throwing dancing shadows across Victoria’s rigid face.
Victoria looked around the room, realizing the trap had snapped shut completely. The pity was gone, replaced by a venomous, baring of teeth.
"You think you’ve won, don't you?" Victoria sneered, looking directly at Ethan. "You think because you caught this little technicality, your precious board is going to let you marry below your station? Or keep your mother’s shares? The board wants this estate sold. If I go down for corporate tampering, I guarantee you, the acquisition goes through tomorrow morning anyway. You’re fighting a losing war, Ethan. You’re just as weak as your father."
Ethan didn’t flinch. He didn’t roar with rage. He simply smiled—a cold, terrifyingly sharp smile that made Victoria take an involuntary half-step backward.
"My father was weak because he let ghosts dictate his life," Ethan said softly, his voice echoing in the grand library. "I’m not fighting my father’s war anymore, Victoria. I’m fighting my own. And as for the board? They’re currently receiving an encrypted copy of these exact logs, along with your lovely little confession, courtesy of my legal team. Security is waiting outside the front gates to escort you off the property. Don't bother packing your bags; I'll have your things shipped to your apartment."
Victoria stared at him, her chest heaving with fury. She opened her mouth to snap a final insult, but thought better of it. With a violent swirl of her silk coat, she turned on her heel and marched out of the room, her heels clicking furiously against the hardwood floor until the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind her.
As the echoes faded, the room let out a collective breath.
Caroline leaned back against the settee, a slow, approving smile spreading across her wrinkled face. "Well," she said, tapping her cane lightly. "Remind me never to play poker with you, grandson. You’ve finally grown some backbone."
Ethan didn’t smile. He turned slowly around to face Hannah, who was standing by the fireplace, her arms crossed over her chest. The adrenaline was draining out of the room, leaving behind a heavy, fragile quiet.
"Hannah," Ethan began, his voice breaking slightly. "Victoria is gone. The board has been notified. The threat is neutralized."
Hannah looked at him, her eyes searching his face. "And what about the trust, Ethan? What about the fact that you threw me out into the rain without letting me say a single word in my defense?"
Ethan closed his eyes, dropping his head. "I deserve every second of your anger."
May you like
"You do," Hannah agreed quietly. She picked up her duffel bag from the corner where she had dropped it earlier. "Which is why I'm finishing my shift tonight to make sure Caroline is settled, and tomorrow morning, I’m resigning."
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