Ethan stared at me, his eyes wide with wild, uncomprehending panic. “What are you talking about? Clara loves me! She was protecting our family!”
“Clara isn’t your adopted sister, Ethan,” I said, signaling my lead attorney to open a thick leather binder on his desk. “She’s the biological daughter of your rival, Arthur Pendelton—the man who has been trying to short your stock and bankrupt your firm for the last three years.”
Ethan shook his head frantically. “No… no, that’s impossible! My parents adopted her from an orphanage when she was six!”
“Your parents were paid to adopt her,” I replied coldly, throwing a stack of DNA tests and offshore bank statements onto the shattered glass on his floor. “Arthur Pendelton placed her in your household as a sleeper agent. For five years, Clara has been feeding your trade secrets directly to Pendelton Global. But when I married you, I started noticing the financial discrepancies in your accounts. I was quietly fixing them behind your back to protect you.”
Ethan’s breath hitched as he looked down at the documents. The signatures were undeniable. The wire transfers bore Clara’s real name and her secret offshore account numbers.
“She knew I was getting close to discovering her identity,” I continued, every word deliberate and heavy. “So she manipulated your toxic ego. She convinced you I was cheating, that I was disrespecting her, that I was leeching off your wealth. She wanted me dead or gone so I wouldn’t expose her. And last night, when you broke my ribs, that back-alley doctor she insisted you take me to? He was paid to give me a lethal dose of painkillers while I was unconscious.”
Ethan slumped back into his chair, looking as though he had been hit by a physical blow. The absolute weight of his stupidity and cruelty crashed down on him all at once.
“I… I didn’t know, Victoria,” Ethan stammered, tears finally welling in his eyes as he reached out a trembling hand toward me. “She tricked me! I was trying to protect her! Please… Victoria, look at what we had! We can fix this. I’ll get rid of her! I’ll put her in prison myself!”
I pulled back, looking at him with absolute disgust.
“You didn’t break my bones because of Clara’s lie, Ethan. You broke them because you are a monster who thought you held absolute power over a helpless woman. Clara merely gave you an excuse to show who you really were.”
At that moment, heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. Four armed federal agents walked into the office, followed by officers from the LAPD.
“Ethan Vance?” the lead agent stated, pulling out a set of handcuffs. “You’re under arrest for corporate embezzlement, wire fraud, and felony domestic assault.”
Ethan looked at me desperately as the metal cuffs clicked tightly around his wrists. “Victoria, please! You have millions! You have the Kang empire! Just drop the charges! Don’t do this to me!”
“I paid $8 million for these eight broken ribs,” I said softly, standing tall despite the agony radiating through my chest. “Consider this your final receipt.”
As the agents dragged Ethan away, screaming and pleading into the hallway, I turned to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Los Angeles. The physical wounds would take months to heal, but as my father’s senior director handed me the master keys to the conglomerate’s new headquarters, I knew the Kang empire was finally in rightful hands.
