บททั้งหมดของ My Husband’s Secret Empire : บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

Nathaniel positioned himself immediately between Wren and the two men blocking the doorway, every muscle coiled with the same controlled violence she'd seen from him in the alley months earlier, facing Julian. "There's no version of this that ends well for you," Nathaniel said, voice low and dangerous despite the two-against-two odds now stacked against them. "Kill us here, in a room full of witnesses at a private auction, and you'll have federal investigators from three countries at your door within days." "I don't intend to kill you," Vale said, something almost bored entering his voice. "That would be considerably less useful than the alternative I actually have in mind." "What alternative?" Wren asked, old instinct sharpening despite the fear hammering beneath her composure. "You've proven remarkably resourceful, Mrs. Cross. Twice surviving direct threats to your life, both times emerging with more evidence than you began with." Vale studied her with something that looked

The weeks that followed Vale's cooperation settled into something Wren hadn't fully expected, not the sudden, complete relief she'd imagined, but a slower, more complicated unwinding as decades of hidden evidence finally began surfacing through proper legal channels."He's given prosecutors everything," Imogen reported one afternoon, spreading a fresh set of documents across the desk in the east wing, the same room that had once held nothing but secrets and now, increasingly, held nothing but closure. "Account numbers, associate names, records dating back to the original Meridian Holdings structure. It's more comprehensive than anything Victor or Regina provided combined.""How long before it's actually finished?" Wren asked. "The legal process, I mean. Not just Vale's confession.""Months, realistically. Possibly longer, given how many jurisdictions this touches." Imogen's expression softened slightly. "But the operational threat is over, Wren. Whatever remains is paperwork, not dang

"I knew," Nathaniel said finally, voice rough, the silence broken at last. "Not everything. Not the full scope of what Voss built underneath us. But I knew, early on, that some of Cross Dynamics' subsidiary transactions were touching money that didn't feel clean. I looked away from it, Wren. I told myself it was easier to let a small, contained problem exist quietly than to pull a thread that might unravel the entire company." Wren felt something complicated settle in her chest not quite betrayal, but a cousin to it. "That's not the same as what your father did. He tried to expose it." "I know." Nathaniel's hands curled against his knees, old shame visible in every line of him. "I told myself I was being pragmatic where he'd been reckless. That protecting the company meant occasionally looking past things I should have investigated directly. It wasn't until you started building your case, until I understood exactly how deep it actually went, that I realized how much I'd been avoidi

The nursery's bookshelves finally got finished on a Saturday, of all things — no lawyers, no filings, no careful strategy meetings, just Nathaniel in an old shirt with a level and too many screws spread across the floor, and Wren sitting cross-legged nearby, handing him tools he mostly didn't need. "You could hire someone for this," she pointed out, not for the first time. "I could." He didn't look up from the bracket he was adjusting. "I'd rather do it myself. Feels like the first thing in a long time that's just... ours. No board meetings. No depositions." Wren smiled, watching him work with more focus than she suspected the task actually required. "You're very bad at this, for the record." "I'm excellent at this." "You've measured that shelf three times." "Precision," he said, deadpan, "is not the same as being bad at something."She laughed — a real laugh, easy in a way that had become more common over the past weeks, even with everything still unresolved hanging over both t

A letter arrived from Vivian that week, forwarded through Regina's legal team since Vivian herself remained cautious about direct correspondence even now, months after Vienna.“Wren,I wanted to write properly, rather than simply pass along updates through lawyers and intermediaries. I've thought about you often since that night — about the strange, unexpected courage it took to walk into a room with a man like Cassius Vale and offer him something other than fear or force. I don't think I could have managed it myself, even after thirty years of understanding exactly what he was capable of.I'm settling into something like an ordinary life again, for the first time since I was a young woman. Zurich still, though under my own name now, which still feels strange to write. I've started volunteering at a small legal aid clinic here, nothing dramatic, just helping people navigate bureaucracy that seems designed to exhaust them into giving up. I find I enjoy it more than I expected to. Perha