Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Panic
Within twenty-four hours of my admission to the intensive care unit, Blackwood Global stock had tumbled fourteen percent. The first video, leaked through the synchronized corporate investor feed, had gone viral across every major social media platform. Headlines branded Ethan as the ""Cold-Blooded Billionaire"" who abandoned his wife to freeze on their wedding anniversary while showering his socialite mistress with diamonds in the tropics.
Ethan sat in the private executive suite at the hospital, his tailored suit rumpled and his tie undone. Across the glass coffee table, his chief legal counsel, Arthur Vance, was reviewing emergency damage control strategies.
""The public relations fallout is catastrophic, Ethan,"" Arthur said bluntly, running a hand through his thinning gray hair. ""Three major institutional funds are threatening to divest if you don't step down as CEO by Friday. Sophia Lane's publicist isn't helping either. She just posted a defensive statement claiming you two were merely discussing a marketing partnership in the Maldives, which nobody with a functioning brain believes.""
Ethan slammed his fist onto the mahogany table, rattling the crystal water glasses. ""I don't care about the gossip rags! What about the second recording? Did Mark retrieve the phone?""
Arthur shook his head grimly. ""Hospital administration placed Clara under high-security protective status. Her personal attorney, Marcus Hayes, arrived three hours ago from New York. He took possession of the physical phone under a court-ordered preservation seal. We can't touch it without facing felony obstruction charges.""
Ethan's blood ran cold. Marcus Hayes was not just any corporate litigator; he was the most ruthless trust-and-estate litigator in the country, and he had been my father’s closest confidant before his untimely death. Ethan had spent years keeping me isolated from my father's old business circle, convincing me that Marcus was untrustworthy. Now, Marcus was standing guard outside my hospital room with two armed private security guards.
""Why would she tell them not to let me see it?"" Ethan muttered, pacing across the room like a caged animal. ""If it was just another emotional goodbye, she would want me to feel guilty. Clara has never hidden her pain from me. She wanted me to suffer, to beg for forgiveness.""
""Unless it isn't about your marriage,"" Arthur warned quietly. ""Clara graduated top of her class in structural engineering before she married you, Ethan. You've treated her like a trophy housewife for a decade, but she is far from stupid. If she found something in that cabin—""
""There was nothing in that cabin except old furniture!"" Ethan snapped, though a sudden bead of sweat broke out along his hairline. He remembered the fireplace. He remembered the hidden titanium safe behind the stonework where he kept his absolute leverage files—the documents he couldn't risk keeping in any cloud server or corporate vault.
Before Arthur could reply, the door to the executive suite swung open. Sophia Lane marched in, wrapped in a designer trench coat, her oversized sunglasses doing little to hide her furious expression.
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""Ethan! We have a serious problem,"" she hissed, slamming her Birkin bag onto the table. ""Reporters are swarming my apartment in Manhattan. My modeling contracts are being canceled by the hour! You promised me you had this pathetic little housewife under control!""
Ethan glared at her, the romantic illusion of their tropical holiday instantly shattering under the harsh fluorescent lights of reality. ""Shut your mouth, Sophia. If Clara opens her mouth about what she knows, you losing a modeling contract will be the very least of our concerns.""
