Chapter 34
Miles away, in Novaria, the sky above Emerald City had turned the color of bruised steel. A sudden downpour slammed against the heavily guarded Sinclair Family estate, turning the manicured lawns into dark, rippling mirrors.
Inside James's study, the air felt so cold and still it could have frozen mid‑breath.
He sat behind his oversized mahogany desk, his tie hanging loose, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. Red veins laced his eyes—angry reminders that he hadn't slept for two nights, not since hanging up on Isabella.
The double doors burst open with a violent crack. Not even a knock.
Evelyn Garcia swept in, wrapped in a dark‑purple couture gown and an expensive cashmere shawl. Her tastefully preserved face was twisted by fury, her heels striking the floor like gunshots as she crossed the room. She slammed a stack of printed documents and newspapers onto the desk.
"Look at this! James, look at it!"
Her voice was so sharp it felt like it could slice straight through bone. Her manicured nails tapped the desk in rapid, impatient beats.
"Your wonderful ex‑wife is out there making a spectacle of herself! The entire upper circle of Amber District is laughing at us. The Sinclair Family—reduced to this!"
James didn't move. His gaze dropped briefly to the scattered pages. They were filled with commentary about Charlotte's public apology, along with endless online mockery of the Sinclair Family—accusations that they were blind, immoral, complicit in chasing away a gifted wife.
"Our century-old name, dragged straight through the mud! Has this ever happened to us?"
Evelyn's chest heaved. The red lipstick on her lips trembled with anger.
"And who does Isabella think she is? If she hadn't gotten pregnant with Jasper, she never would've gotten through our doors! Now she grows a pair of wings, leaves you without a penny, and then uses our humiliation as her ladder to climb back into the spotlight!"
Six years ago, James would've responded to this outburst with cold silence. Back then, he'd found women's squabbles tedious, beneath him.
He certainly had never stepped in to defend the woman he'd believed had schemed her way into his home.
But hearing Evelyn spit venom now, something hot and violent surged inside him.
"The one disgracing us is Charlotte," he said. "Not Isabella."
Evelyn froze. It was clear she hadn't expected her usually indifferent son to take that stance. "What… what did you just say?"
James opened a drawer and threw a brown envelope onto the table.
"Since you have the leisure to read those gossip news, you'd better face the facts." James's tone was icy cold. "These contain all the capital flow records and irrefutable chat evidence proving that Charlotte hired an underground public relations team, forged academic complaint letters, and paid online trolls to spread obscene rumors about Isabella across the internet."
Watching Evelyn's face turn rigid in an instant, a mocking cold smirk tugged at the corner of James's mouth. "If Isabella hadn't possessed such strong ability to fight back, the biological mother of your own grandson would have been the one suffering from online violence all over the internet, ruined completely, and driven to suicide! The only reason Charlotte is still alive and free to post apology letters on her social media accounts is that I shamelessly pressured Isabella to drop the lawsuit by relying on the life-saving favor Ethan once did for me!"
Evelyn stared at him as if he had slapped her. When she finally flipped through the documents, her hand trembled.
Charlotte had always been her favorite—a well‑bred girl from a longstanding family, someone who understood how to please elders. Certainly more suitable, in her eyes, than the modest, unremarkable Isabella.
Never—not even once—had she imagined Charlotte capable of such cruelty.
But Evelyn was a woman shaped by decades of high‑society instinct. Her pride and her disdain for Isabella didn't crumble so easily. She tossed the confidential evidence back on the desk.
"Yes, Charlotte went too far. But don't fool yourself, James. No woman gets targeted unless she gives someone a reason. You think Isabella is some pure little victim?"
She crossed her arms, voice low and cutting.
"Use your head for once. A woman who spent six years doing laundry and making dinner suddenly walks out and lands a chief director role at Northstar Architecture—a top firm in Tech Harbor? She gets attacked online and, within hours, she summons the best hackers and legal teams in Amber District? Does that sound normal to you?"
Evelyn leaned forward, narrowing her eyes at the faint pallor creeping into James's face.
"You really can't see it? Everything lined up just a little too perfectly. Too clean."
Her tone hardened, filled with poisonous certainty.
"She was never innocent. That man Joseph—her college acquaintance, her current boss—practically staked his company's reputation on shielding her. You honestly believe they kept their hands clean all six years?"
"Mother." James's voice broke into a low growl, veins standing out across his hand.
Evelyn didn't flinch.
"Facts are facts. She's a user, James. A selfish opportunist. She had Joseph waiting in the wings. That's why she left without taking anything—it wasn't sacrifice. It was strategy. Convenience."
Each word struck like a blade.
"She orchestrated this entire spectacle. She wanted the world to see our disgrace so she could relaunch herself. So she could boost that man's firm. Isabella used you. She used the Sinclair name."
Silence dropped over the study—thick, suffocating.
James sat motionless in his leather chair. Yet his pulse hammered in his ears, loud enough to drown out the storm outside.
In his mind, he couldn't stop the image that had been haunting him: that photo circulating online—Isabella in a tiny Mexican restaurant, smiling with a brightness he hadn't seen in years, while Joseph watched her with an affection so gentle it felt indecent.
He remembered the stairwell in Tech Harbor, the way she'd walked away from him without hesitation.
He remembered Joseph's guarded stare outside the club, a silent warning he hadn't understood then.
Was any of it… true?