LOGIN[POV: Yessica] (Location: Edinburgh)The amended motion sat on Eleanor's table like a live wire.Termination of parental rights upon conviction.Yessica read it twice. Lewis hadn't moved beside her, but she felt the shift in him — the way a person goes quiet when something crosses a line they didn't know existed until it was already crossed."She can file that," Eleanor said, keeping her voice low and even. "But a judge won't grant it without a conviction. Right now, our focus is today's hearing. We deal with what's in front of us."Judge Morrison entered. Everyone stood.Regina sat across the aisle with her lawyer, James Whitmore — expensive suit, reputation for aggressive tactics. She looked nervous. She kept glancing at Lewis, then away.Whitmore presented his case first: printed news articles, social media screenshots, stock price charts, and minutes from this morning's board meeting, all arranged into a neat portrait of a household in collapse."Mr. Sterling's household is unde
[POV: Lewis] (Location: Edinburgh)Lewis knotted his tie in front of the bathroom mirror at 6 AM, and his hands wouldn't stay still.Yessica appeared behind him in her robe, shadows under her eyes. They'd barely slept. "I can come with you.""You need to be at the custody hearing at two." He met her eyes in the mirror. "I'll have Marcus and the lawyers."What he didn't say: the board had already made up their minds. He'd read it in their weekend emails — the language of people preparing to act, not people preparing to listen.Marcus met him in the parking garage. Two lawyers flanked them with briefcases full of arguments that wouldn't change twelve votes already cast.Reporters mobbed the entrance. Microphones, cameras, questions fired from every angle."Mr. Sterling, did you embezzle company funds?""Will you resign today?"Lewis walked straight through without answering. His lawyers delivered the prepared statement at the door. He gave them nothing else.Inside the building, peopl
[POV: Yessica](Location: Edinburgh)Three news vans were parked outside before noon.Yessica counted them from the upstairs window — cameras assembled, journalists positioned, all of them aimed at one front door."Mama." Claire pressed against her side. "Why are those people out there?""They're doing their jobs, sweetheart." The lie came out smooth. "We're going to have a nice day inside, okay?"Claire accepted that. Yessica didn't.Downstairs, Lewis was pacing. She could track him by sound — living room to kitchen, kitchen to hallway, back again. The kind of silence that meant he was thinking somewhere she couldn't reach.She opened her laptop and immediately regretted it.#SterlingFraud was trending across every platform. Business publications that had praised Lewis for years were now dismantling him paragraph by paragraph. Twitter was worse — thousands calling him a thief, a criminal, a disgrace. Think pieces analyzing his "pattern of deception" were already live: the secret daug
[POV: Lewis] (Location: Edinburgh)Lewis hadn't been asleep more than an hour when his phone buzzed.6:47 AM. Marcus's name on the screen.He grabbed it before it woke Yessica. She'd barely slept in days — Rose's ear infections, the stress of Catherine's lawsuit, the emotional weight of yesterday's vow renewal. She deserved at least this one morning.The text was three words.Turn on news. NOW.He slipped into the hallway and opened the news app. The headline loaded, and the floor disappeared beneath him.STERLING INDUSTRIES UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION FOR FINANCIAL FRAUD — CEO LEWIS STERLING IMPLICATED IN SECURITIES VIOLATIONS.His hands went cold. He read it again. And again.Anonymous whistleblower. Irregularities in company accounts. $2.3 million allegedly diverted through shell companies. His digital signature on every transaction. Financial Conduct Authority opening formal investigation. Board meeting called for Monday.None of it was true."Lewis?"He turned. Yessica stood in
POV: Yessica | EdinburghShe was in the garden at seven when Ethan came out.He had the rabbit under one arm and his shoes on the wrong feet, which she had stopped correcting because he noticed eventually and fixing it himself seemed to matter to him. He sat near her on the garden step without asking if that was all right.She let him settle.He looked at the roses."My roses have more flowers now," he said.She looked. There were buds she had not noticed yesterday, small and tight, opening at the edges."They grew while we were not looking," she said.He considered this seriously."My other mummy told me something about that," he said. "She said love grows like flowers. You plant it and you wait." He looked at the roses, then at Yessica. "I think you planted some."She looked at him.He said it the way he said most true things — simply, without drama, already moving on to examining the nearest rose bush.She looked at the garden."I think you are right," she said.From the kitchen wi
POV: Yessica | EdinburghShe had been at the kitchen table since five.Victor Hale had sent three more messages after the first one. She had read all of them before Lewis came downstairs at half past six, found her there, and sat down without asking if she was all right because he had learned the difference between her needing assistance and her needing company."Tell me what he said," Lewis said.She read him the relevant parts.Sienna had found records from Victor Hale's previous firm — a 2019 share manipulation he had believed was buried. She offered him a choice: cooperate or she gave the records to the FCA.He cooperated. For eighteen months he fed her internal information about Bellamy Holdings — schedules, restricted filings, personal data from governance documents.When the operation escalated to children and custody matters and medical records being used as logistics intelligence, he tried to stop. She threatened him again. He kept going."He is a witness and a defendant," Le







