Chapter 10 - Ethan’s Code
Ethan stared at the entry record.
“I never entered that office.”
Emma looked at him carefully.
“Who knew your code?”
“Victoria.”
She shook her head.
“Margaret’s attorney.”
The attorney had prepared the prenuptial amendment.
The housing transfer.
And the false warning against the venue manager.
He had also represented Margaret before her reported death.
Emma played the final recording on her phone.
Her own voice came first:
“If you find this, the contract is real.”
Then another recording followed.
A woman spoke from the locked trust office.
Older.
Controlled.
Unmistakable.
Margaret Merrick.
“Emma will try to protect the employees.”
A man answered:
“And Ethan?”
“He will sign whatever is placed in front of him if the room is beautiful enough.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
His mother had predicted his weakness perfectly.
The recording continued:
“Victoria does not need to understand the trust. She only needs to keep Emma away from the altar.”
Victoria backed toward the staff door.
Ethan looked at her.
“You heard this?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Emma examined the recording date.
It had been made that morning.
Margaret was not merely alive.
She had been inside the mansion during the wedding.
Three knocks sounded again beneath the altar.
Everyone froze.
The manager looked toward the room where Emma had been hidden.
“It’s empty.”
The knocks came again.
Not from the service room.
From a sealed archive chamber behind it.
Victoria whispered:
“She said that room no longer existed.”
Emma looked at her.
“Who said?”
Victoria’s eyes filled with fear.
“Your mother.”
The archive door opened from the inside.
An elegant older woman stepped into the corridor wearing the same pearl brooch Margaret wore in every family portrait.
Ethan stopped breathing.
“Mom?”
Margaret looked at the canceled altar.
Then at the employees surrounding it.
Finally at Emma.
“You found the wrong contract.”
She carried the original employee-trust charter in one hand.
Ethan’s first marriage certificate was in the other.
Ethan stared at it.
“I’ve never been married.”
Margaret smiled coldly.
“Not knowingly.”
Victoria looked at the certificate and collapsed against the wall.
Because the spouse named beside Ethan was not Victoria.
May you like
It was Emma’s legal identity.
TO BE CONTINUED.
