Chapter 2 - The Audit of Souls
The fallout was not merely swift; it was total. By the time the sun set on the following day, the "Weston Vance Medical Supply Company" had ceased to exist.
My grandfather’s legal team, led by a man named Julian Thorne—a litigator known for bankrupting Fortune 500 companies for sport—had arrived at Weston’s corporate headquarters with a team of forensic accountants. They didn't just seize assets; they systematically exposed every single lie Weston had built his life upon.
I remained in the hospital for the next week, not because I needed the care, but because Sawyer and Quinn were still fighting, and I refused to leave them. My grandfather set up a command center in a private suite down the hall.
Weston was not allowed to leave the city. His passports were revoked, his bank accounts were drained by court-ordered freezes, and he was served with a mountain of subpoenas that would have taken a small law firm months to process.
On the third day, Weston was granted a brief, supervised visit to the hospital, strictly to sign the finalized annulment papers. He looked like a man who had aged twenty years in twenty-four hours. His charcoal suit was wrinkled, his hair was thinning from stress, and the arrogant, gleaming confidence he had worn like a mask was gone.
He stood by my bed, his hands trembling. The security guards stood by the door, their presence a silent, looming threat.
"They took everything, Jade," he whispered, his voice cracking. "The company, the car, the apartment... they even tracked down the commission bonuses I took from the previous firm and filed criminal fraud charges. I’m going to prison."
I looked at him, feeling absolutely nothing. No anger, no pity, no sadness. Just a profound, liberating clarity. "You spent three years trying to steal a fortune you didn't understand, Weston. You were so blinded by your greed that you didn't realize you were the one being audited."
"I loved you," he claimed, a pathetic, desperate attempt to play on my memory of the man I thought I had married.
"You loved the idea of a wife who provided you with a lifestyle," I corrected him. "You didn't love me. If you had, you wouldn't have replaced me with Ashley the moment I became 'fragile'—the moment I started fighting for our children's lives."
Ashley was gone. My grandfather had discovered that she was not just a mistress, but a corporate spy planted by a competitor to gain access to the Sterling family’s investment strategies—a plan that had failed because Weston had lied to her about my actual identity. She was currently facing federal charges for industrial espionage.
Weston signed the papers, his pen shaking. "What about the kids? Can I see them?"
I looked at the NICU monitors. "You called them 'runts,' Weston. You signed away your rights the moment those words left your mouth. You will never see them. You will never know them. You will be a footnote in their history that they will never have to read."
May you like
He tried to protest, but Elias stepped forward, his hand resting on Weston’s shoulder. It wasn't a friendly gesture. It was an eviction.
As Weston was led away, a broken man with nothing but a pending criminal trial in his future, I turned my attention back to the incubators. The nurses were prepping Sawyer for his first bottle-feeding. I realized then that my grandfather was right. We don't just protect our own; we clean the house.
