Chapter 14 - The Broken Pawn’s Final Secret
Before boarding our private jet to Europe, there was one piece of unfinished business in Miami: Ethan.
He was held in a secure federal detention suite downtown, stripped of his bespoke tuxedo and dressed in an orange jumpsuit. When the heavy steel door opened and I walked in flanked by Julian, Ethan flinched, pulling his cuffed hands against his chest.
"Claire," Ethan croaked, his eyes hollow, dark circles bruising his sunken cheeks. "Please... you have to tell the prosecutors I cooperated. Cross will have me killed in prison. You know what they do to traitors!"
I took a seat opposite him, folding my hands over my knee with absolute poise. "You made your bed among vipers, Ethan. Now you get to sleep with them."
"I did everything for us!" he pleaded, leaning across the stainless steel table until the chains rattled. "Cross threatened to ruin me before we even married! He said if I married you and helped him hollow out your father's reserves, he'd make me CEO of the entire eastern seaboard!"
"Save your breath," I replied icily. "Cross is finished. He’s facing forty years at ADX Florence. But Cross wasn't acting alone. Who was giving Cross his orders?"
Ethan hesitated, his eyes darting frantically toward the one-way mirror. Sweat beaded on his forehead. "I... I can't say her name. She’ll have my mother killed. She’ll burn down everything."
My eyes narrowed. "*Her* name? The Syndicate isn't just Alistair Vance?"
Ethan swallowed hard, trembling. "Vance is the money, Claire... but the strategist—the one who fed Cross the interior blueprints of Sterling Tower, the one who authorized my marriage to you—is Lady Victoria Ashford. Your godmother."
A cold spike of betrayal pierced through my veins. Victoria Ashford had held my hand at my father’s funeral. She had cried with me. She had recommended Ethan to the Sterling board six years ago as a 'safe, obedient match' for an orphaned heiress.
"Victoria," I murmured, the puzzle pieces clicking into a horrifying picture.
"She orchestrated your father’s plane crash," Ethan sobbed, tears cutting clean lines down his dirty face. "And she told Cross that once you were disgraced at the gala and signed over your power of attorney, Ethan Vance Ashford would absorb Sterling Global permanently."
I stood up, adjusting the lapels of my tailored blazer.
"Thank you, Ethan," I said calmly.
"Wait! Claire! Tell them to put me in witness protection! Claire!" he screamed as the guards pulled him back into his chair.
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I didn't look back. Walking into the humid Miami morning, I looked at Julian. "Prep the Gulfstream. We aren't going to Geneva first. We’re going to London."
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