Several board members.
All of them watched in complete silence.
But upstairs, Ethan still believed he was in control.
“Once you sign, Vanessa and I will announce that you’re stepping away temporarily for health reasons,” he said. “I’ll assume the chairmanship of the company. She’ll manage the estate. The twins will remain under my custody until you recover.”
Vanessa laughed.
“And if you never recover? What a convenient tragedy.”
Charlotte pressed her fingers against her belly.
“Was my father’s death convenient too?”
The room changed instantly.
Ethan shot Vanessa a warning look.
“Don’t talk about that.”
But Vanessa was too confident now.
“Your father didn’t die from grief, Charlotte,” she said sweetly. “He started asking questions. He found transfers. He spoke to lawyers. He wanted to change the will. What did you expect us to do? Let that old man destroy years of work?”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath Charlotte.
Her father, Richard Bennett, had supposedly died of a heart attack six months earlier.
Now she was hearing something far worse.
“What did you do to him?” she asked, barely breathing.
Ethan snatched the pen from her and grabbed her arm.
“Enough to make it look natural.”
Downstairs, someone screamed.
Upstairs, Ethan didn’t understand why.
Vanessa did. Her smile flickered.
“What was that?”
Ethan frowned.
The music downstairs stopped abruptly.
A massive silence settled over the house.
Charlotte felt the weight of hundreds of people holding their breath below her feet.
Another message appeared on her watch.
The prosecutor is here. Police are on the way. Keep them talking for thirty more seconds.
Charlotte lifted her face.
The tears were still there.
But her eyes had changed.
“Tell me something, Ethan,” she whispered. “When you lock me away… are you also going to say I imagined you and Vanessa?”
His face twisted.
“No one will believe anything you say.”
He opened the folder and slammed the documents in front of her.
“Sign.”
Vanessa stepped closer, lowering her voice.
“And if you refuse, maybe those babies won’t even make it to birth.”
Charlotte stopped crying.
That sentence traveled through the entire house.
Downstairs, a glass table shattered.
Then came footsteps.
Many of them.
Fast.
Furious.
Charging up the staircase.
Ethan turned pale.
Vanessa stepped backward.
Still sitting on the floor, Charlotte touched the diamond at her throat and said:
“You just signed your own conviction.”
The door did not open.
It exploded inward.
The lock broke with a sharp crack, and wood splintered against the wall.
Three police officers entered first.
Grant followed directly behind them, tall and rigid, his face hardened by fury he was barely controlling.
Beside him stood Prosecutor Rebecca Hayes, an old friend of Charlotte’s father.
“Ethan Walker. Vanessa Blake,” she said firmly. “You are under arrest for extortion, criminal conspiracy, corporate fraud, falsifying medical documents, and threatening a pregnant woman.”
