Chapter 6 - The Trap is Set
I brought Clara directly to a secure penthouse suit I had rented in the city center. Maren was waiting inside, escorted by Mark’s men.
When the elevator doors opened and I walked out carrying Clara wrapped in a soft warm blanket, Maren let out a cry that tore through the quiet apartment. She ran across the room, collapsing into my arms as she grabbed her daughter, pressing her face against the baby’s chest, weeping hysterically.
“Clara! Oh my baby, my sweet girl!” Maren wept, kissing the baby’s face over and over. Clara cooed softly, instinctively resting her little head against her mother's chest.
I stood there, watching my entire family reunited—Liam, Noah, Clara, and Maren—and for the first time in a year, I felt a spark of hope. But I knew this war was far from over. Tessa and her family still had their hands on the levers of my company, and they had no idea I had retrieved Clara.
“Maren,” I said gently, sitting beside her on the couch and wrapping my arm around her shoulders. “I need you and the children to stay in this penthouse under full guard for the next forty-eight hours.”
Maren looked at me with concern in her eyes. “Rowan, what are you going to do?”
“Tessa and her father are throwing a massive gala tomorrow night to celebrate our upcoming wedding and the company merger,” I said, my eyes cold and resolute. “Every major media outlet, board member, and politician in the state will be there. Tessa thinks she’s going to walk out of that hall as the future owner of Vance & Tech Corp.”
“Rowan, they are dangerous people,” Maren warned, reaching out to clutch my hand. “They ruined my life without blinking an eye. They’ll try to destroy you too.”
“They tried,” I whispered, kissing her hand softly. “But they failed. They forgot that everything I built was to protect the people I love. I lost my way once, Maren. I let them fool me. I will never let anyone hurt you or our children again.”
Later that evening, I met with my lead legal counsel, Victoria Hastings, and my forensic tech team in the lower floor of the penthouse complex.
“We’ve cracked Sterling’s encrypted laptop,” Victoria reported, sliding a flash drive across the conference table. “It’s all here, Rowan. Email chains between Tessa Whitmore, her father Richard Whitmore, and Arthur Vance dating back eighteen months. They planned the entire affair plot long before you were even suspicious.”
“Why?” I asked, leaning over the table. “Why go to such extreme lengths?”
“Because your father’s original charter for Vance Tech stipulated that if you remained married to Maren, fifty percent of your voting shares were automatically tied to a family trust that required her co-signature,” Victoria explained. “Maren couldn’t be bought or intimidated into selling out to Whitmore Enterprises. So they had to eliminate her legally and emotionally, making sure you would divorce her and marry Tessa—who would then combine her shares to take complete hostile control of your father's company.”
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I took the flash drive, feeling its cold weight in my palm.
“They wanted a grand show,” I murmured softly. “I’m going to give them a performance they’ll never forget.”
