Chapter 3 - The Blood Bargain
Eleanor looked at me with the same disdain she might reserve for something she scraped off her shoe. She was a woman carved from ice and old money, draped in cashmere, her face a rigid mask of calculated control.
"Mother," Daniel stood up, stepping between her and my hospital bed. "What are you doing here? Get out."
"Sit down, Daniel. We are going to handle this like adults," Eleanor commanded, signaling her guards to wait in the hall before shutting the door. She tossed the manila envelope onto the edge of my bed.
"What is this?" Daniel demanded.
"It is a non-disclosure agreement, a custody arrangement, and a divorce settlement," Eleanor said smoothly, her eyes locked on me. "You will sign it, my dear. You will surrender primary custody of the twins to our family, you will receive a very generous alimony of $10,000 a month, and you will drop these absurd, fabricated assault charges against Vanessa."
I let out a dark, breathless laugh. "Fabricated? She nearly killed my children!"
"Vanessa is a troubled girl, but she is family," Eleanor snapped. "And I will not allow some middle-class gold digger to send my daughter to a penitentiary."
"Mom, are you insane?" Daniel yelled, grabbing the laptop. "I have the footage! She attacked my wife! She stole two and a half million dollars in my name! She framed me!"
Eleanor didn't even flinch. She slowly took off her leather gloves. "I know, Daniel. I helped her do it."
The silence in the room was deafening. Even the heart monitor seemed to pause.
"You... what?" Daniel whispered, the betrayal shattering his voice.
"Vanessa got involved with some very dangerous people," Eleanor said, her tone devoid of emotion. "An offshore gambling syndicate. She owed them a lot of money. If she didn't pay, they were going to kill her. I couldn't use my personal accounts without your father finding out, so I showed her how to siphon the funds from your division. You are the CEO. You can take the hit. Vanessa cannot."
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She turned back to me. "The $150,000 trust fund was the final payment. Vanessa panicked when the syndicate gave her a 24-hour deadline. She made a mistake attacking you. But now, it’s done. If you show that footage to the police, I will trigger a failsafe I built into the company servers. It will release doctored evidence proving Daniel orchestrated the embezzlement to fund a secret, illegal enterprise. My grandson's father will rot in federal prison, and you will be left with nothing."
🔥 HOOK: Eleanor slid a gold pen across the blanket toward me. "Sign the papers, and Daniel stays free. Fight me, and I destroy you both." She smiled. But she didn't realize my left hand was under the blanket, gripping my phone, with an active call connected to the one person who could ruin her.
