Chapter 5 - The Trap is Set
The following morning, I moved my mother out of the mansion and into a private, high-security medical estate in Malibu. The facility had twenty-four-hour nursing staff, ocean views, beautiful gardens, and top-tier security.
I hired a young, compassionate personal nurse named Clara. Clara was the daughter of a hardworking nurse who had passed away years ago, and she treated my mother with a deep, genuine gentle respect that brought tears to my eyes.
"Don't worry, Mr. Cole," Clara said softly as she adjusted my mother's silk blanket while Mom slept peacefully, listening to the ocean waves outside her window. "I will take care of her as if she were my own mother. No one will ever hurt her again."
"Thank you, Clara," I said, placing a heavy retainer check on the bedside table. "If she needs anything—anything at all—you buy it. No budget limits."
With my mother safe, nurtured, and properly cared for, I focused my full attention on execution.
That afternoon, I returned to my main corporate headquarters. I instructed my executive assistant to "accidentally" leave a top-secret financial analysis for the Port Revitalization Project in my home office at the mansion—the office Victoria still thought she could access using her old back-door security codes before the lock changes were fully finalized on the digital servers.
As predicted, my security cameras caught Victoria sneaking into the mansion late that night.
She didn't come to apologize. She didn't come to check on my mother. She crept into my study, took out her smartphone, and photographed every page of the falsified bid document.
The document claimed that Cole Enterprises was bidding $1.2 billion for the port deal, supported by a fraudulent environmental report claiming the land was free of industrial toxins. In reality, the land was heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals—a fact my real team had discovered during classified soil tests. Whichever company bought the land would be hit with billions in mandatory federal cleanup costs that would instantly trigger bankruptcy.
Through the hidden camera lens, I watched Victoria smile triumphantly as she texted the photos to Brandon Sterling.
“Got it, babe,” her message read. “Ethan has no idea. Bid 1.25 billion and the project is yours. Once he loses this, his board will vote him out, and I’ll take half his net worth in the divorce.”
I sat in my darkened limousine outside the mansion, watching the video stream on my phone.
"You really are a viper, Victoria," I murmured to myself. "You built your own scaffold."
The next day, Senator Arthur Vance called a press conference. Surrounded by reporters, he publicly denounced me, claiming that Cole Enterprises was under state investigation for "financial irregularities" and "elder neglect"—a desperate attempt to pre-emptively destroy my reputation before I could ruin his family.
"Ethan Cole is a ruthless capitalist who has forgotten his roots!" Arthur declared dramatically to the news cameras. "He mistreats his own family and misuses corporate funds! I am calling for an immediate freeze on his public projects!"
The media went wild. Cole Enterprises' stock price dipped by four percent in afternoon trading.
Victoria made a grand appearance on a national breakfast talk show, wearing a modest black dress, wiping away fake tears.
"I tried so hard to be a good wife," Victoria sobbed to the interviewer. "I cared for his mother night and day. But Ethan became obsessed with money. He turned paranoid, cruel... he threw me out onto the street because I asked him to spend more time with his family. I just want justice."
The public narrative was quickly turning against me. Society loved a story about a wealthy, arrogant billionaire who mistreated his sweet, innocent wife and abandoned his roots.
My board of directors panicked.
"Ethan, this is a disaster!" my chief financial officer shouted during an emergency board meeting. "The stock is plummeting! The press is tearing us apart! We need to settle with Victoria and her father before they ruin us!"
I sat at the head of the boardroom table, calmly drinking my coffee.
"Let them talk," I said smoothly.
"Let them talk?!" the CFO exclaimed. "Ethan, Senator Vance is filing an emergency injunction tomorrow to halt the Port Project bid!"
"Good," I smiled, looking around the panicked room. "Let him think he's winning. The higher they climb, the harder they hit the pavement."
I turned to Marcus, who was standing quietly near the door. "Is everything ready for the public auction tomorrow?"
May you like
"Every trap is primed, Ethan," Marcus replied with a dark grin. "The Mayor, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and every major news outlet in North America will be in that hall."
"Good," I said, setting my coffee cup down with a soft click. "Tomorrow, we host the main show."
