Chapter 7 - The Confrontation at the GalaI froze in the doorway, the blood draining from my face. "Camila... you knew."
She didn't deny it. She stood up, smoothing the wrinkles of her coat.
"I had to, Ethan," she said, her voice dripping with calculated calm. "Eight years ago, I didn't fall in love with a poor artist in Seattle. I was sent to Seattle to find you. My father and your uncle needed a Vance bloodline to seal the trust. But when I met you... you were broken. You were useless. You had no power."
"So you lied to me?" I choked out, a wave of sickness washing over me. "The tattoo... the broken compass... it was all a game?"
"The tattoo was insurance," she corrected, taking a step toward me. "A physical marker to prove our connection if we ever needed to drag you out of obscurity. I did get pregnant with twins. But when Marcus died in a car crash seven years ago, his infant daughter Valerie was left without legal standing. To keep his half of the Vance-Dominion shares intact, we added Valerie to my pregnancy record and claimed they were triplets."
"You monstrous..." I stepped toward her, but two private security men—not police—stepped out from the shadow of the trailer, drawing silenced weapons.
They weren't federal agents. The entire "arrest" scene outside was a staged setup orchestrated by Camila's faction of the company to strip her father, Arthur, of his power and hand full control of Montgomery Enterprises to her!
"My father was old, paranoid, and weak," Camila said, her eyes flashing with ruthless ambition. "He kept me medicated because I was planning to push him out of the board. Tonight, you gave me exactly what I needed. You ruined my father on live broadcast, clearing my path to take full control of the twelve-billion-dollar merger."
"And the girls?" my voice cracked. "Regina, Lucy, Valerie... they're just pawns to you?"
"They are the future of this empire," Camila said coldly. "And you, Ethan... you were just the key to the vault."
She signaled her guards. "Dispose of him quietly. Make it look like an overdose from the shock."
The two guards lunged forward.
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed a heavy metal defibrillator off the wall unit and slammed it into the face of the first guard. He went down with a bloody groan. The second guard fired—POP—the bullet tore through my shoulder, sending a shockwave of agony through my body.
May you like
I screamed, swinging the defibrillator with my good arm, knocking the second guard off balance. I burst out of the trailer into the rain, blood pouring from my shoulder.
"HELP!" I shouted toward the dark woods, sprinting into the storm as gunfire echoed behind me.
