Chapter 6 - The Broken Trust Found
That night, while the house slept, Ethan sat in his dark study, the flash drive plugged into his secure personal terminal. The blue notebook lay open beside his keyboard.
As the files loaded, Ethan’s monitor illuminated his face in a pale green light. Clara hadn't just kept the core script of the logistics algorithm; she had documented every single email, text message, and board memo from the early days of Cole Industries.
There was a specific folder labeled: THE EXPULSION.
Inside was a recorded conversation between Ethan’s original venture partners and Julian Vance, who was then a silent investor in the fund. The audio file played cleanly through Ethan's speakers.
“Ethan is weak,” Julian’s voice said from seven years ago. “He thinks he’s a genius, but the girl is the brain. Cut her out now before she realizes the value of the intellectual property. If Ethan objects, tell him we’ll pull the funding and let his father's estate go to auction. He’ll sign whatever we put in front of him.”
Ethan closed his eyes as the audio continued. He had known the investors wanted her gone, but he hadn't known it was Julian Vance pulling the strings even back then. He had let them convince him that Clara was a liability, when in reality, she was the only one who had been honest with him.
The second part of the flash drive contained the completed algorithm—the seasonal adaptation layer. It was a masterpiece of mathematical engineering. It didn't just route trucks; it anticipated fuel shortages, labor strikes, and severe weather patterns with ninety-nine percent accuracy.
A soft sound at the door made Ethan close the screen.
Sadie stood in the doorway, holding a stuffed rabbit with one ear missing—the only toy recovered from the plastic crate at the motel. "Emma is crying," she said. "She doesn't like the big room. It’s too loud."
Ethan stood up and walked over to her. "The room is too big?"
"At the motel, we all slept in one bed," Sadie said, looking down at her socks. "We could hear each other breathe. Here, I can't hear her unless I stand right over the crib."
"Come with me," Ethan said.
He led her up the stairs to his master suite. He moved the heavy down comforter from his king-sized bed onto the floor of the adjoining sitting room, creating a large, secure nest of pillows and blankets. He brought Emma’s portable crib into the room and set it right beside the blankets.
"How's this?" Ethan asked.
Sadie looked at the makeshift setup, then up at Ethan. "You're going to sleep on the floor too?"
May you like
"If you want me to," Ethan said.
Sadie didn't answer, but she crawled into the center of the blankets, pulling the stuffed rabbit close to her chin as Emma’s breathing smoothed out in the crib nearby. Ethan sat against the wall, his back to the door, his eyes wide open in the dark.
