All Chapters of MARRIED MY BILLIONAIRE EX AFTER HIS FUNERAL : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Adrian grabbed Sophie's arm, pulling her toward the door. "The facility has its own security team," he said, already dialing. "I'm calling them directly, not waiting for police." "Ten minutes," Sophie said, her voice shaking. "She said ten minutes." "Then we don't waste a single one," Adrian said. They ran. Reyes and Whitfield followed, Whitfield already on the phone with the police, giving the facility's address, his voice clipped and urgent. The drive took six minutes that felt like sixty. Sophie's hands gripped the dashboard the entire way, Adrian weaving through traffic with a controlled desperation she'd never seen from him before. "He's going to be okay," Adrian said, though his knuckles were white on the wheel. "He's going to be okay, Sophie." They burst through the facility doors together, security already swarming the hallway, Danie

Three weeks after the lemon tree, Whitlock called with actual news. "We got a break," she said, her voice carrying more energy than Sophie had heard from her yet. "The forensic accountant traced one of the shell companies back to an offshore account. It's registered under a name we didn't expect." "Whose?" Sophie asked, gripping the phone tighter. "Judge Harold Ferris," Whitlock said. "The same judge connected to those two dismissed cases years ago. There's a direct financial link between him and Eleanor's shell network, going back over a decade." Sophie sat down slowly. "You can prove that?" "We can prove the money trail," Whitlock said. "That alone doesn't prove corruption, but combined with the pattern of dismissed cases during his tenure, it's enough to open a separate investigation into him specifically. Which means, if she was relying on him to interfere with our case—" "That door just closed," Sophie said, hope flic

The call came at two in the morning. Whitfield's voice, tight and urgent, pulled Sophie fully awake before Adrian even had the phone to his ear. "Judge Ferris is dead," Whitfield said. "Found in his car, ruled an apparent suicide. But Sophie — he was the primary witness connecting Eleanor to the corrupted cases. Without him, that entire thread of the investigation just got significantly harder to prove." Sophie sat up fast, her heart pounding. "You think she had something to do with it." "I think it's an extraordinary coincidence," Whitfield said grimly, "that he died less than a week after federal investigators contacted him for questioning." Adrian's jaw tightened as he listened, pulling Sophie close. "What does this mean for the case?" he asked. "It means we lost our strongest link to judicial corruption," Whitfield said. "The financial trail still exists, but without his testimony, proving intent becomes signi

The trial started three weeks later, faster than Sophie expected given everything Whitlock had warned about complex federal cases. "The judicial corruption angle actually sped things up," Whitlock explained during a pre-trial meeting. "Once Judge Ferris's journal became public record, other judges wanted this resolved quickly, before public trust eroded further. Nobody wanted this case sitting unresolved for years." Sophie sat in the front row of the federal courthouse on the first morning, Adrian beside her, Daniel and Whitfield close behind them. David Reyes and Marcus Whitmore, both scheduled to testify, sat further back, present but tense. Eleanor entered the courtroom in a simple gray suit, stripped of the elegant confidence she'd always carried so effortlessly. She looked older somehow, though her posture remained perfectly straight. She glanced once at Sophie as she took her seat, something unreadable passing across her expression befor

Sophie didn't sleep at all that night. By morning, she'd made a decision. "I need to see the hospital records myself," she told Adrian over breakfast, her untouched coffee going cold in front of her. "Not through Whitlock. Not filtered through anyone else. I need to see everything with my own eyes." Adrian studied her carefully. "You think someone's been softening the truth for you." "I think everyone keeps telling me to be careful," Sophie said. "Which usually means there's something worth being careful about." Whitlock arranged access that afternoon, though her expression carried visible concern as she handed over the file. "I want to remind you," she said, "that we still don't have confirmation this woman is actually your mother. It could be a coincidence. A shared name. Nothing more." "But you don't think that," Sophie said. Whitlock hesitated. "No. I don't think that." Sophie opened the fi