Chapter 4

After planning everything, I returned to the office.

The moment I pushed open the boardroom doors, I heard Ethan announcing high-level staff changes.

"Evelyn hasn't been feeling well lately, and my mother is critically ill and needs dedicated care," Ethan announced to the board. "Therefore, Maya Miller will serve as the temporary Director of Core Projects."

Maya Miller was sitting right in my assigned chair.

I walked straight down the center aisle, my voice calm but sharp enough to slice through the room.

"Since when does an outsider get to sit in my chair?"

Silence fell over the boardroom. Ethan Cross stepped up to me and lowered his voice to a whisper.

"Evelyn, Mom was diagnosed with a terminal illness yesterday. She could pass away at any moment," he urged quietly. "Aren't you usually the dutiful daughter-in-law?

“Let Maya and I handle the company while you go take care of Mom."

I scanned the executives in the room, refusing to back down.

Before coming here, I had pulled my mother-in-law's medical records.

The terminal diagnosis was completely fake, she paid off a doctor to write a forged certificate.

It was all a setup so they could liquidate company assets and flee the country without interference.

"If Madam Cross is so gravely ill, I'll hire top specialists to treat her," I replied, staring straight into his eyes. "As for the directorship, I am the majority shareholder. Nobody touches that chair without my signature."

Ethan Cross's expression instantly darkened.

"Evelyn, do you really want to play dirty?" Ethan leaned closer, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp threat. "You don't know yet, do you? I transferred your father to a private facility yesterday.

“Sign the divorce papers and hand over the key data right now."

He smirked coldly. "If you refuse, I'll call the hospital and tell them to cut off his critical life support."

I clenched my fists tight, staring at him in utter disbelief.

My father, Arthur Ernest, suffered a severe stroke after my mother passed away and relied entirely on daily high-cost treatments to survive.

He actually hijacked my father's hospital account to threaten his life!

"Don't you dare!" My whole body trembled with rage.

Before Ethan could speak, his assistant, Austin, sprinted in, out of breath. "Mr. Cross, the lobby downstairs is swarming with press!"

Ethan Cross grabbed my wrist in an iron grip and dragged me straight toward the elevators.

In the center of the first-floor lobby, my mother-in-law, Martha Cross, and little Leo Cross were dressed in tattered clothes, weeping in front of a wall of flashing cameras.

"I treated her like my own daughter!" Martha sobbed dramatically. "Yet she bribed the nursing staff to poison me!"

Leo squirmed beside her, his face twisted into a pout. "I love Mommy, but she said she only loves the brother she had with another man!"

I was caught completely off guard.

The moment the reporters spotted me, they swarmed forward like vultures.

"Mrs. Cross! Is it true that you secured the company's initial funding by sleeping with investors? Are these leaked photos authentic?"

A journalist thrust a smartphone into my face.

Seeing explicit photos of myself plastered across social media, the fury I had suppressed for days finally exploded.

During our early startup days, I drank myself into stomach bleeding just to pitch investors.

When a client tried to assault me, I fought with everything I had to escape.

Ethan Cross knew that painful truth better than anyone.

Yet he preserved those security captures for years, not to protect me, but to destroy me today.

"Is it true you despised your mother-in-law's humble background, cut off her medication, and tried to pull her oxygen tube in the hospital?"

"Is the company facing bankruptcy because of your core data leaks, and are you refusing to step down out of pure greed?"

Every question was a poisoned blade.

Maya Miller stood in the crowd, tears rolling down her cheeks at just the right moment.

"As her best friend, it breaks my heart to see her lose all self-respect like this."

Ethan Cross put on the tragic mask of a devoted, heartbroken husband for the cameras.

Then he leaned down to my ear and illuminated his phone screen.

It was a live video feed of my father hooked up to a ventilator.

"Evelyn, be a good girl and play along."

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. "Fine."

Ethan Cross smiled with cold satisfaction. He turned to face the cameras.

"I trust my wife will give everyone a proper explanation. For now, our chief manager was shaken up by the chaos, so I will take her upstairs to rest."

He turned and walked toward the private elevator with Maya Miller.

The moment their backs were turned, a faint, ice-cold smile touched my lips.

Oh, I will give them an explanation.

He just better be ready to swallow it.

---

Minutes ticked by, the tension in the lobby growing thicker with every second.

When the clock on the wall hit precisely 7:30 PM, my phone vibrated with a text from Joyce, my assistant.

I let out a silent sneer, casting aside every trace of vulnerability.

"You all want the truth, don't you? No problem."

I pointed toward the side exit of the building. "Follow me. I'm going to tell you a real story."

I led the crowd of reporters out the side doors onto the exterior walkway.

From this angle, everyone had a direct, unobstructed view looking up at the second-floor executive suite.

The moment the press raised their eyes to the glass, gasps echoed through the crowd, followed by a frenzy of camera shutters.

I pulled out my phone and dialed emergency services.

"Hello, is this the police department? I'd like to report an ongoing indecent act in a corporate office.”