LOGINSophia's POVEthan didn't wait for the next light to change.He cut across two lanes, horn blaring behind us, his jaw set with the same focused intensity I remembered from the night my father collapsed, his hand finding mine across the console even as he drove with the other, gripping tight enough that I could feel his own fear bleeding through the contact."Talk to me," he said. "How bad is it. On a scale, one to ten.""Six," I gasped, another wave rolling through me, sharp and insistent low in my abdomen. "Maybe seven.""How far apart?""I don't know, Ethan, I'm not exactly timing contractions with a stopwatch right now.""Sorry. Sorry." He exhaled hard, forcing his voice into something steadier. "We're almost there. Two minutes, maybe less."We reached the hospital in record time, Ethan practically carrying me through the emergency entrance, his voice sharp and commanding as he demanded immediate attention, the staff moving quickly once they registered the twin pregnancy, the visib
Sophia's POVBy the time we reached Ethan's office, the headline had already spread across every major outlet, the fabricated story dressed up with just enough polished detail to look credible to anyone who hadn't lived through the truth of it themselves.*Blackwell CEO Orchestrated Wife's Pregnancy Scandal for Sympathy, Leaked Documents Suggest*"This is insane," I said, staring at my phone in the back of the car, my hands shaking with fury rather than fear now. "They're printing this like it's confirmed fact.""They're printing it because it's convincing," Ethan said grimly, scrolling through the same headlines on his own phone. "Falsified emails, doctored financial records. Whoever built this took their time. It's good work, in the worst possible sense."We arrived to find his office already in chaos, assistants moving briskly between rooms, phones ringing constantly, his head of communications waiting anxiously by the elevator the moment the doors opened."We need a statement," sh
Sophia's POVEthan called his lawyer before he even finished reading the message a second time."Get Diane Castellano's location," he said, already pulling on yesterday's shirt, his voice sharp with urgency despite the early hour. "And find out if she's been in contact with Penelope's legal team at any point over the past month."I sat up slowly, my heart still hammering from the message still glowing on my screen. "You think Penelope's behind whatever she meant by real leverage.""I think Diane wouldn't have risked everything on her own initiative without someone bigger backing her play," Ethan said, pacing now. "And the only person in this entire mess with enough motive and enough resources to orchestrate something this layered is still my stepmother, regardless of what criminal charges are currently hanging over her."His phone rang twenty minutes later, and he answered before the first ring finished."Talk to me.""Diane's attorney contacted the district attorney's office an hour
Sophia's POVEthan spent most of that night on the phone, pacing the length of the living room while his security team worked through the tangled web of shell accounts and corporate holding companies, trying to narrow down exactly which board member had access to the infrastructure Marcus Chen's payment had traced back to."How many people have access to that holding company?" I asked, watching him rub his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time."Too many," he admitted. "It's used for legitimate deals constantly. Real estate acquisitions, minority stakes in smaller firms. Narrowing down who specifically authorized a transfer to Chen is going to take time.""Time we might not have, if this person's willing to keep escalating.""I know." He sank onto the couch beside me, exhaustion finally catching up with him. "I keep running through the board in my head. Trying to figure out who'd actually benefit from destabilizing me enough to make room for someone else.""Who's on the list?""E
Sophia's POVEthan's security team found him within six hours."A hotel across town," the man on the phone reported. "Checked in under his own name, oddly enough. No attempt to hide. Room 214.""That's strange," Ethan said, already grabbing his jacket. "A man careful enough to send untraceable threats isn't careless enough to check into a hotel under his real name.""Unless he wants to be found," I said.Ethan paused, considering that. "Or unless he's not actually the one sending them."We drove across the city in tense silence, Ethan's hands steady on the wheel despite the sharp focus radiating off him, and pulled up outside a modest hotel that looked nothing like the kind of place I imagined a man with Foster's resources would choose to disappear into."Stay close to me," Ethan said, as we made our way toward the elevator. "If this goes badly, I want you near the door, not in the middle of it.""I can handle myself.""I know you can. Humor me anyway."We reached room 214, and Ethan
Sophia's POVEthan read the message three times before he set the phone down."Auctioning off kindness," he repeated slowly. "That's oddly specific phrasing.""You think it means something.""I think whoever sent this wants us to think it means something." He picked the phone back up, forwarding the message to someone before I could ask who. "I'm sending this to my security team. They traced the first one to a burner registered under a fake name. They'll run this one too.""Ethan." I hesitated, the words sitting uneasy in my throat. "There's someone I should probably mention."He looked up. "Who?""Julius. The friend from before. The one you were rude to at the gala." I twisted my hands together, hating how much I didn't want to say the next part out loud. "When Mini and I ran into him weeks ago, he gave me his card. Said to call if I ever needed anything."Ethan went very still."You never mentioned that.""I didn't think it mattered. It felt harmless at the time, an old friend being







