Chapter Ten: Two Fronts

Ethan read the message twice, then looked up at Marcus. “Cassius went straight from here to the hospital where Robert Bennett is recovering.”

Marcus’s expression sharpened. “That is not possible on the timeline. He left here minutes ago. Millbrook General is thirty minutes out at best.”

“Unless he never came here personally at all,” Julius said slowly from the wheelchair, still catching his breath but thinking clearly despite it. “Unless the man who spoke to you was never the one giving the orders in real time, and Cassius has been somewhere else entirely, directing all of this by phone.”

Ethan’s stomach turned over. If that was true, then the man they had just fought and lost in the hangar had been a decoy of sorts, expendable. At the same time, the real Cassius stayed clear of any personal risk, watching the entire confrontation unfold from a safe distance and positioning his next move before the first one had even finished.

“I need to get to Millbrook,” Ethan said, already moving toward the car.

“Ethan.” Julius’s voice stopped him. “Whoever is at that hospital is testing whether you will run to protect the Bennett family again, or stay to secure what actually matters, which is confirming I am safe and getting proper medical attention immediately.” His jaw tightened. “He is trying to split you in half. Do not let him.”

“I am not choosing between you,” Ethan said. “I am choosing to trust Marcus’s team to get you to a hospital safely while I make sure Sophia’s family is not walking into another trap the moment they think this is over.”

Julius studied him for a long moment, something reluctant and proud moving across his tired face at once. “You argue like your father used to. He never let anyone tell him a decision was impossible until he had tried it himself.” He exhaled slowly. “Go. Marcus will stay with me. But Ethan, call Whitfield the moment you know anything. I want eyes on both situations at once, not scattered pieces of information arriving an hour too late to matter.”

Ethan nodded, already dialling Sophia as he climbed into the second car with two of Marcus’s remaining men.

“Ethan.” Sophia picked up before the first ring finished. “Please tell me you are okay, I have been staring at this phone for twenty minutes not knowing anything.”

“I am fine. Julius is safe, Cassius got away but his men are in custody.” Ethan kept his voice steady despite the split lip making every word slightly harder to shape. “Tell me exactly what happened at the hospital.”

“A nurse said a man matching Cassius’s description came asking specifically for my father’s room number, using a fake name that did not match anyone on the visitor list. Security turned him away before he got past the front desk, but he left before anyone could hold him for questioning.” Her voice shook slightly. “They moved my father to a different wing as a precaution, but Ethan, if he can walk into a hospital that easily—”

“He cannot get to your father again,” Ethan said, more confidently than he entirely felt. “I am fifteen minutes out. I am bringing security with me.”

The drive passed in tense silence, Ethan replaying Julius’s warning in his head. He is trying to split you in half. It was working, whether Ethan wanted to admit that or not, his attention torn between two people who both needed him at once, both targeted specifically because Cassius had learned, with cruel precision, exactly who mattered enough to Ethan to be worth threatening.

When they arrived at Millbrook General, Sophia was waiting outside the new wing, pale and exhausted, wrapping her arms around herself the moment she saw him.

“He is stable,” she said quickly, before Ethan could ask. “Sleeping now, under guard. The doctor says he needs rest but should recover fully.” She studied Ethan’s face, wincing slightly at the split lip and the bruise already forming along his jaw. “What happened to you?”

“Complicated morning,” Ethan said. “It is handled for now.”

“For now,” Sophia repeated quietly, the words carrying more weight than either of them wanted to examine too closely. “Ethan, this is not going to stop, is it. Whatever this is between you and your cousin.”

“No,” Ethan admitted. “I do not think it is.”

They sat together in the hospital’s small waiting area while Marcus’s men checked the new wing’s security arrangements, and for a while neither of them spoke, the exhaustion of the last several hours settling heavily over both of them at once. Ethan’s phone rang. Whitfield.

“Julius is being admitted to a private facility now, under significantly tighter security than the last hospital provided,” Whitfield said without preamble. “He is stable, resting, insisting he is fine despite every medical indication suggesting otherwise. Mr Carter, I need to tell you something else, and I do not believe there is a gentle way to say it.”

Ethan straightened. “Say it.”

“While reviewing the forged documents Cassius took from you at the airstrip, my team discovered something troubling in the process of confirming they had not somehow been swapped or compromised before we handed them over.” Whitfield’s voice had gone unusually careful. “We ran a full authentication check on the original proxy transfer paperwork, the real documents still in our possession, purely as a precaution given how thoroughly Cassius has managed to anticipate our moves so far.”

“And.”

“The original transfer documents Julius signed two days ago,” Whitfield said slowly, “do not match the version currently filed with the state registry. Someone altered the registered copy after filing, redirecting a portion of the voting shares Julius believed he was giving entirely to you into a separate holding structure we have not yet been able to trace.”

Ethan’s grip tightened on the phone. “How much?”

“Twelve per cent,” Whitfield said. “Enough to shift the balance of any close board vote decisively.” A pause, heavy and reluctant. “Mr Carter, whoever altered that filing had to have done so with inside access to both the registry and Julius’s original signature, meaning this was not Cassius acting alone from the outside.”

“Then who?”

Whitfield’s silence stretched long enough that Ethan’s stomach began to sink before the answer even came.

“The alteration was authorised under Arthur Whitfield’s own digital signature,” he said finally, voice tight with something that sounded almost like shame. “Mr Carter, someone inside my own office did this. And I do not yet know who I can still trust.”