Chapter 5 - THE MARRIAGE SHE POISONED
By midnight, Khloe was resting under guard.
Marcus sat beside her bed, unable to look away from the bruise darkening along her side.
“I should have stopped this sooner,” he said.
“You should have believed me sooner.”
He closed his eyes.
For months, Isabella had inserted herself into their marriage with careful precision. She arranged private meetings with Marcus, then leaked photographs that looked intimate. She sent Khloe anonymous messages claiming Marcus regretted the pregnancy. She convinced Victoria that Khloe planned to seize control of the family foundation.
Marcus had dismissed each incident as gossip.
Khloe had lived inside it.
“I kept asking you to set boundaries,” she said. “You kept telling me she was harmless.”
“She was never harmless.”
“No. You just needed tonight to prove it.”
He accepted the words without defending himself.
Gabriel entered and placed Nolan’s flash drive inside an evidence bag.
“He tried to erase hospital footage,” Gabriel said. “But that is not the only thing we found.”
The drive contained copies of private medical schedules, elevator access logs, and a seating plan for the gala.
Someone had known exactly when Khloe would enter the suite alone.
Marcus looked at the document. “This was planned.”
Gabriel nodded. “And Nolan did not plan it by himself.”
At the bottom of the gala schedule was a handwritten note:
Ten minutes. No witnesses. Make it look emotional.
The handwriting belonged to someone Marcus knew better than anyone.
May you like
His mother.
Marcus remembered every time Victoria had called Khloe oversensitive, every dinner where she had praised Isabella, and every warning he had dismissed to avoid conflict. The pattern had been visible. He had simply chosen comfort over courage. Now Khloe and their child were paying for his silence.
