Chapter 112 He Signed His Life Away
For three years, I believed he stopped loving me. I believed he discarded me because I grew boring. I believed he preferred the shiny, perfect heiress.
I traced his signature on the page with my fingertip.
He did not leave me because he stopped caring. He left me because he had a gun pressed to his head. He signed his life away to save his grandmother from prison and his family from ruin. He sold his future to keep tens of thousands of workers employed. He walked into a cage, and he locked the door behind him.
A hot tear broke free. It tracked down my cheek and dropped onto the glass desk.
I closed my eyes. The grief threatened to drown me. I spent years building my company on a foundation of pure rage. I used my hatred for Tristan as fuel. I wanted to break him. Now, the contract sitting on my desk proved my entire reality was a lie.
I wiped the tear from my cheek. I took a deep, ragged breath.
I opened my eyes. I looked at the contract again.
He made a sacrifice. He saved his family. But he still made a choice.
He chose the Johnston empire. He chose the money. He chose Harriet’s legacy. He looked at the debt, he looked at our marriage, and he decided his family name held more value than my heart.
He did not trust me. He did not tell me the truth. He treated me like a fragile thing that needed protection from the harsh realities of his world. He decided my fate without asking for my input. He robbed me of the choice to fight beside him.
Protection without trust is just another form of betrayal.
"He signed it," I said. My voice grew steady. The ice reformed over my emotions. "He agreed to the terms."
Diego watched me. He saw the shift in my posture. He saw the vulnerability harden into resolve.
"He did," Diego agreed. "He took the deal."
"Then let him choke on it," I stated. I pushed the contract back across the desk. "He bought his crown. I have no pity for a king who complains about the weight of the gold."
I stood up. I walked over to the wide windows. I looked out at the morning traffic clogging the streets of the financial district. Tristan was a victim of his grandmother’s greed, but he was also a willing participant in the lie. I refused to absolve him. I refused to forget the pain of my isolated pregnancy, the cold nights in the charity ward, and the terror of raising a child alone.
He made his bed. He could sleep in it.
"There is one more thing, Minerva," Diego said.
The tone of his voice made me turn around. Diego did not look at the main contract. He pulled a single, thin sheet of paper from the bottom of the folder.
"When the data team traced the Whitmore stabilization funds," Diego explained, his brow furrowed in disgust, "they found a secondary account. A slush fund Thomas Whitmore uses for off-the-books public relations."
I walked back to the desk. "A PR fund?"
"A bribe account," Diego corrected. "Thomas used it to pay off the journalists who published your private photos three years ago. He funded the smear campaign to brand you a gold digger. He needed to destroy your reputation to ensure Tristan never tried to go back to you."
"I already know the Whitmores paid the tabloids," I said.
"They paid the tabloids," Diego agreed. "But they also paid the source."
He handed me the single sheet of paper.
It was a bank wire transfer receipt. The date stamp matched the day the scandal broke across the capital. The amount was fifty thousand dollars. The origin was the Whitmore slush fund.
I looked at the destination account.
My blood turned to freezing sludge in my veins. The name printed in stark black letters burned into my retinas.
Beneficiary: Vanessa Cole.
I stared at the name of my former best friend. The woman who shared my cramped apartment in the district. The woman who held my hand when I cried. The woman who sat in my office yesterday, weeping and claiming she sold my photos because her mother was sick.
She lied to my face.
She did not sell my photos to a random gossip blogger for quick cash. She struck a direct deal with the Whitmore family. She conspired with the billionaires who ruined my life. She handed them the ammunition, and she took their blood money.
"Find her," I ordered.
Diego stood up. He recognized the lethal intent in my eyes. "She is staying at a cheap motel in the south district. My team is tracking her phone."
"Cancel my afternoon meetings," I instructed. I grabbed my wool coat from the back of the chair. "Have Marcus bring the car to the front entrance. I am going to pay an old friend a visit."