Chapter 24: The Voice On The Recording

POV: IVY

The voice on the recording was familiar, but I could not yet prove who it belonged to.

I sat at the edge of the velvet armchair in my guest suite, replaying the seven-second audio file over and over. The electronic distortion warped the pitch into a metallic drone, but the cadence, the deliberate, theatrical pause before the threat, carried a cadence I had heard a thousand times before. It was calculated. It was designed to induce compliance through quiet terror.

I saved the file into an encrypted folder on my phone, backed it up to a private cloud account, and logged the exact timestamp into my leather notebook. Then I stood up, smoothed down the front of my cream silk blouse, and walked straight to Michael’s study.

I didn't wait for permission. I knocked once and stepped inside.

Michael was reviewing international wire transfers on his dual monitors, a half-empty cup of espresso sitting by his elbow. He looked up, his dark eyebrows pulling together in immediate annoyance at the intrusion.

“Ivy,” he said, his tone clipped. “I am in the middle of clearing the European markets. What is it?”

I walked over to his massive walnut desk, took out my phone, and set it flat on the leather blotter between us.

“Listen to this,” I said flatly.

I hit play.

The distorted, synthetic voice echoed through the silent, high-ceilinged room: “You should have stayed in your room tonight, Gemma. If you care about your grandmother, stop asking questions.”

Michael sat back in his leather chair, his stormy gray eyes fixing on the phone screen. His expression didn't shift into shock, nor did he display a sudden burst of protective alarm. He simply studied the audio wavelength with the cold, detached eye of a corporate auditor.

“Where did this come from?” Michael asked, his voice entirely unbothered.

“An unlisted burner number at five this morning,” I replied, keeping my spine straight and my voice razor-sharp. “Right after someone used our estate proxy credentials to try and cancel my grandmother’s ICU clearance at St. Jude’s.”

Michael let out a short, quiet sigh, resting his chin on his steepled fingers.

“This is a family dispute, Gemma,” Michael said, his tone laced with heavy condescension. “Your mother have been fighting over the allocation of your family’s asset trusts since long before our wedding. Evelyn likely instructed her staff to issue a hold to pressure you regarding the estate settlements, and someone in her office sent a crude message to keep you compliant.”

A hot spark of anger flared in my chest. “A crude message? Michael, someone is actively threatening a dying woman on a ventilator to leverage power over me!”

“And you are bringing domestic dramatic affairs into my quiet study,” Michael fired back, his gray eyes narrowing into two icy points as he cut me off. “You constantly demand that I view you as a partner in this marriage, yet every minor conflict with your family turns into an emotional crisis.”

I stared at him, locking my jaw so tightly my teethached. He wanted so badly to believe I was volatile, dramatic, and incompetent that he was willing to write off a direct extortion threat as simple family squabbling.

I leaned forward, resting my palms on the edge of his desk, forcing him to meet my gaze head-on.

“If this was just a family dispute, I wouldn't care,” I said, my voice dropping into a chilling, measured thread. “But the person making these calls has access to our family's private financial proxy codes. If they can breach our private accounts to manipulate hospital transfers, they can breach the accounts tied to our joint merger filings. Have your security team trace the origin of the burner number, Michael. Or do I need to hire an outside firm to do it for me?”

For a brief, tense moment, Michael stared at me in absolute silence. My refusal to break down, combined with the cold, logical threat to corporate security, hit the exact metric he understood best: risk management.

He reached for his desk phone, tapped a single speed-dial button, and brought the receiver to his ear.

“Linus,” Michael commanded smoothly when his assistant answered. “Take the audio file and the incoming routing logs from Gemma’s phone. Hand them over to john in corporate cyber-security. I want a trace on the relay tower and the originating IP within twenty-four hours.”

He hung up, looking back up at me with an unreadable glare. “It will be looked into. Now leave me to my work.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly, turning on my heel and exiting the study.

By noon, I was back in the east wing trying to review the press briefing notes for the upcoming weekend. My phone chimed.

Gemma.

I answered immediately. “Did the hospital call you?”

“No, Mother did,” Gemma snapped through the speaker, her tone colder and far sharper than it had been during her drunken rant the night before. The ambient club noise was gone, replaced by the quiet hum of a high-end Paris hotel suite. “What are you doing, Ivy? Are you completely insane?”

“I played the voicemail for Michael,” I stated, keeping my voice steady. “Someone threatened Grandmother’s life, Gemma. I’m not going to sit here and pretend it didn't happen.”

“You are pushing too hard!” Gemma hissed, her voice dropping into a dangerous, viperous whisper. “Do you have any idea what happens if Michael’s security team starts digging into our family proxy codes? They won't just find the hospital logs, they’ll trace the overseas shell accounts Mother set up! They’ll find the discrepancies in my personal spending!”

“I don't care about your shell accounts!” I retorted, gripping the phone tight. “I care about keeping Grandmother alive!”

“Listen to me very carefully, you little idiot,” Gemma snarled, her breath coming in sharp, angry hitches. “If you blow this play, if you make Michael suspicious enough to audit our family trusts, Mother will cut off every cent of Grandmother’s care permanently. She will pull the plug herself and blame it on administrative delays. Stop asking questions. Stop poking around. Play the quiet, obedient wife, or I swear to God, Grandmother will pay the price for your arrogance.”

The line went dead with a harsh, echoing snap.

I lowered the phone, my chest heaving as the room pressed in around me. The walls were closing in from every side. Gemma and Evelyn wanted me silent and terrified; Melanie wanted me exposed and ruined; Michael wanted me detached and flawless.

They all believed they could use Grandmother as a leash to keep me in line.

I walked over to the nightstand, picked up the small silver frame, and looked into Grandmother’s smiling eyes.

No, I thought, a quiet, unbreakable resolve hardening in my blood like iron. I will not stop fighting. I will not let them intimidate me into letting her die.

At four in the afternoon, my phone rang again. I braced myself for another threat, but the caller ID showed the direct extension for St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital administrative office.

I picked it up instantly. “This is Ivy.”

“Miss Ivy, good afternoon,” the chief administrator’s voice sounded formal, cautious, and slightly bewildered. “I’m calling to follow up on the security trace you requested regarding the unauthorized hold placed on your grandmother’s critical care file last night.”

I stood up straight, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Did you find where the authorization call originated?”

“Our IT compliance team cross-referenced the proxy clearance credentials used during the automated cancellation call with the registered emergency contact profiles on file,” the administrator explained carefully. “We discovered one very specific detail, Miss Ivy.”

“What detail?” I breathed.

“Both the burner number that left the automated hold request and the primary security clearance line used during the threat share the exact same registered emergency billing address,” the administrator revealed quietly. “It’s registered directly to your mother’s primary residence—Evelyn Gilbert estate.”