Chapter 2 - Shadows of the West Wing
The movement was a soft scrape of leather against the floorboards. I spun around, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Martin stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders slightly hunched, casting a long, wavering shadow under the flickering emergency light. In his hand, he held a heavy brass key ring.
“You shouldn’t be in here, Mr. Ethan,” Martin said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Where is she, Martin?” I demanded, stepping forward until I was inches from him. “Don’t lie to me. I’ve known you since I was six years old. Where is my wife?”
Martin didn't look at my face; his gaze remained fixed on the small silver ring I was still clutching so hard the metal bit into my palm.
“Your mother... she wasn’t acting alone,” Martin murmured, glancing nervously down the corridor toward the main staircase. “There was a doctor. Dr. Vance. He came three times a week. They gave her drafts to keep her quiet, Mr. Ethan. Your mother was terrified that Mrs. Grace would ruin the merger.”
“Merger? What does a baby have to do with Caldwell Meridian’s merger?”
“Everything,” a cool, melodic voice echoed from the dark stairwell.
Evelyn stepped out of the shadows, her footsteps completely silent on the Persian rug. She didn’t look panicked. She looked like a CEO addressing a minor quarterly deficit.
“Grace was never fit for this family, Ethan,” Evelyn said smoothly, stopping five paces away. “She came from a small town in Maine, with no connections, no pedigree. When you married her, I thought you were sowing wild oats. But then she got pregnant. And you started talking about rewriting the family trust to split the corporate shares equally between her and any future children.”
“She is my wife!” I roared, the fury finally breaking through the shock. “She gave up everything for me!”
“And I gave you an empire,” Evelyn replied, her tone sharpening like a razor. “If you split those shares, the board would have dissolved our controlling stake. We would have lost Caldwell House, the shipping lanes, everything your grandfather built. I simply... arranged for her to take an extended leave of absence. For the greater good of the dynasty.”
“Where is she right now?” I stepped toward her, fists clenched so tight my knuckles turned translucent.
Evelyn smiled faintly. “Safe. In a private clinic upstate. Dr. Vance is monitoring her. The baby was born three days ago, Ethan. A healthy boy.”
The room stopped spinning. The air vanished from my lungs.
“My son,” I whispered.
“Your heir,” Evelyn corrected. “And he will be raised properly. By me. Without the influence of a weak-willed mother who tried to run away from her obligations.”
Before Evelyn could blink, I lunged past her, grabbing Martin’s key ring from his slack hand. I sprinted toward the main foyer, ignoring my mother’s sharp, commanding shouts echoing off the high stone walls.
May you like
I had the keys. I had the car waiting outside. But as I burst through the heavy oak front doors into the pouring rain, I realized Evelyn had already locked the perimeter gates from her smartphone.
I was trapped inside my own estate, and the clock was ticking down to midnight.
