Chapter 10 - WHAT ETHAN KNEW
I didn’t open the last envelope.
Not yet.
I wanted Ethan to talk first.
“What do you think is inside?”
He sat at my father’s kitchen table.
Luka remained by the window.
Amelia stood nearby with a recorder running after Ethan agreed to speak.
Ethan rubbed his hands together.
“Three months ago, Richard called me into his office.”
He swallowed.
“He said Mara’s father had been blackmailing our family.”
I stared at him.
“And you believed him.”
“I believed everything he told me.”
“That’s becoming obvious.”
Ethan flinched.
“He showed me fragments of Daniel’s files.”
“What fragments?”
“Bank transfers.”
Luka stepped forward.
“From Richard to Northbridge Diagnostics?”
Ethan looked surprised.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know he’s been paying them for years.”
My pulse quickened.
“What were they doing?”
“Altering records.”
“What kind?”
“DNA.”
I looked toward the last envelope.
Ethan continued.
“Richard told me Daniel had proof that could destroy our family.”
“What proof?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Then why were you trying to access my trust?”
Ethan looked at the floor.
“Because Richard said Daniel hid copies inside the Bennett trust archive.”
“So you married me to find them?”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly.
I stared at him.
He closed his eyes.
“At first, no.”
At first.
Those two words shattered whatever tiny piece of me still wanted our marriage to have been real.
“When did it change?”
“After we got engaged.”
He looked at me.
“Richard recognized your last name.”
“You told him about me before proposing.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s when the investigation started.”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you to marry me?”
“No.”
“Did he encourage it?”
Ethan said nothing.
My eyes burned.
He whispered, “Yes.”
I stepped away.
Luka looked like he wanted to break something.
I didn’t need him to.
Ethan had already broken everything.
“What about Vanessa?”
“She found the trust references six months ago.”
“When did the affair start?”
His silence answered.
Six months.
Almost exactly when my inheritance became valuable to him.
“You were sleeping with her while I was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And both of you were searching my father’s files.”
“Yes.”
I looked at Sophie asleep in the bassinet.
“Then you left us because you thought you had everything.”
Ethan’s voice cracked.
“I left because Vanessa showed me the fake paternity result.”
“You knew it was fake.”
“Not at first.”
“But you found out.”
He looked down.
“When?”
“The morning Sophie was born.”
My heart stopped.
Before he walked out.
Before he looked at my newborn daughter and refused to touch her.
“You knew the test was fake before you abandoned us.”
“Yes.”
The word nearly destroyed me.
“Then why?”
Tears filled his eyes.
“Because Richard told me if I stayed with you, he would destroy my career, expose the affair, and cut me off from everything.”
I stared at him.
“You chose money.”
“I chose the only life I knew.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You chose yourself.”
He began crying.
I felt nothing.
Not because I was cruel.
Because the part of me that once protected him had finally died.
Luka turned toward the last envelope.
“Then whatever is inside this is bigger than paternity.”
Ethan wiped his face.
“I think it proves Richard killed someone.”
I looked at him.
“Who?”
May you like
Ethan raised his eyes.
“Your mother.”
