Chapter 12 - SHADOWS OF DOUBT
The black velvet box contained a single, wilted white rose and a torn photograph of Hannah's late parents.
Pinned to the photograph was a typed note that simply read, "Ask her about the stolen two million, Ethan."
Ethan stared at the note, his jaw ticking dangerously as his sharp mind tried to calculate the threat.
He refused to let Victoria's insane family plant seeds of doubt in his newly healed heart.
He threw the note into his paper shredder, deciding instantly to protect Hannah from this vicious psychological warfare.
But when he returned home to the estate that evening, Hannah was sitting on the couch, pale and trembling.
She was holding a duplicate copy of the exact same photograph, which had been slipped under the front gate.
"Ethan, they know about my father," Hannah whispered, tears of absolute panic welling in her eyes.
Ethan rushed forward, pulling her into his chest and kissing the top of her head fiercely.
"It doesn't matter what they know, I will crush them," Ethan promised, his voice vibrating with lethal authority.
Hannah pulled back slightly, her eyes filled with a deep, paralyzing shame.
"Before he died, my father embezzled money from Arthur Hale's investment firm to pay for my mother's medical treatments," she confessed.
The brutal truth hung in the air, explaining exactly why Arthur had targeted her all those years ago.
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Ethan didn't flinch, he didn't pull away, and he didn't look at her with an ounce of judgment.
"Then we will pay it back with interest, and we will bury Arthur Hale alive," Ethan declared.
