เข้าสู่ระบบ[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
POV: Yessica | EdinburghEleanor said the name.Yessica sat very still.Victor Hale. Non-executive director. Bellamy Holdings board, three years. The one she had defended to her COO eighteen months ago when there had been questions about his judgment in the Harland Capital governance review."What is in the communications?" she asked. Her voice came out even.Eleanor read excerpts. Not summaries — actual lines.Home address confirmed per calendar share. Home study date: 14th, per CEO schedule document. Third child arrival week of the 22nd, per board governance update. Allergy detail pulled from restricted family schedule filed with board compliance office.Yessica looked at Lewis.He looked back at her."He had restricted access to the compliance filings," she said to Eleanor. "The family schedule was submitted during the governance review about my CEO availability last year. It was board-level only. Not circulated externally.""I know," Eleanor said. "We have the access logs. He open
POV: Yessica | EdinburghThey did not go to bed.The sitting room was quiet, the house settled, the silver bands new on their right hands, and Yessica had said she needed to have a conversation about Catherine so they were having it."She did three things," Yessica said. "Accepted the defamation judgment. Used her board standing to close the Sienna thread — which I still think she did without your permission, and that is a problem we have not finished with. And then called the FCA voluntarily this morning." She looked at him. "None of it undoes what she did. But there is a difference between those actions and performance, and I can acknowledge that difference.""What do you want to do?" Lewis asked."I want to set terms," she said. "Supervised. Scheduled. Our timeline, not hers. She gets access to the children because those children deserve to know their grandmother — the actual one, not the one who filed petitions. But every condition is ours and they are not negotiable."Lewis was q







