Chapter 152 Broken Trust

Chapter 152 Broken Trust
Ethan sat behind his desk, yet for the first time in a long while, the office, his sanctuary of control, felt too small to contain the weight pressing on his chest. The city lights filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but his gaze wasn't on the skyline. His thoughts were spiraling.
The contract... their contract.
Only two copies existed. One in his possession. One in Lena's. No digital trace, no additional printouts, he had been careful. Obsessively careful.
Yet the board had a copy.
His jaw tightened. Someone had slipped past his guard. Someone close. Someone with enough access to his home, his study, or Lena's personal belongings. His mind sorted through names, faces, possibilities, but every path led to a dead end that tasted like betrayal.
A sharp, explosive bang cut through the silence as the office door swung open, striking the wall with a violent thud.
Ethan's head snapped up.
Sir Levi stood at the entrance, his face thunderous, eyes blazing with a kind of fury Ethan had never seen directed at him before.
"Ethan Sinclair!" Sir Levi's voice boomed across the room.
Ethan straightened instinctively, but he didn't speak. The older man stepped inside, slamming the door with his cane for emphasis.
"I am disappointed. Deeply, painfully disappointed," Sir Levi seethed, his chest rising with indignation. "Do you have any idea what you've done? What this represent?" His voice cracked, not with weakness, but with the strain of betrayal.
Ethan's throat felt dry. No words formed.
"This...." Sir Levi shoved the printed contract onto Ethan's desk. "This is not just a breach, Ethan. This is a disgrace. A direct insult to Max Sinclair himself. To everything he built, to his name, to his legacy!"
Ethan's fingers curled subtly against the desk. The mention of his grandfather hit like an old wound reopening.
Sir Levi began pacing, his anger too restless to remain still. His cane hit the floor with each step, echoing like a judge's gavel.
"That man, your grandfather, trusted you. He left this empire in your care. And this is how you repay him? By throwing away the most sacred rule he set?"
Ethan lowered his gaze, the weight of Sir Levi's words sinking deeper than he expected. He stayed silent, not out of guilt, but because he didn't yet know how to defend himself, not without giving Lena more exposure, not without fueling the fire.
Sir Levi stopped pacing and looked at him with a bitterness that stung. "I never thought I would live to see the day the Sinclair heir would make this kind of mockery of the family name."
Silence lingered heavily.
Sir Levi exhaled, pain lacing his voice now. "Perhaps this explains why Lena has not given this family a grandchild." His tone wasn't questioning, it was accusing.
Ethan's head snapped up instantly, eyes sharp and controlled, but burning. Sir Levi met his gaze steadily, unflinching.
"So that day," Sir Levi continued, leaning closer, his voice lower but more piercing, "when I came to your home and asked about a grandchild,..." His eyes narrowed. "You looked me in the eye and lied."
The word hung in the air like a slap.
Ethan's breath stilled in his chest. Slowly, he lowered his head. Not in submission, but in acknowledgment. He hadn't lied to many people in his life. But that day... he had.
Sir Levi stared at him for a long moment, studying him, almost searching for the Ethan he once believed in.
"I defended you," Sir Levi said quietly, voice trembling with restrained hurt. "All these years. Against the board, against the press, against your critics. I told them you were different. That you were better. That Max raised you to be a man of honor."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
Sir Levi straightened, the softness gone. "Fix this," he said, voice resuming its iron edge. "Fix it immediately."
Without waiting for a response, he turned sharply and stormed out, his cane striking the floor with every furious step, leaving Ethan alone again, but now the silence felt suffocating.
Ethan remained still, eyes fixed on the door long after it slammed shut, the contract lying between his hands like a loaded weapon.
Ethan's chair scraped sharply against the floor as he stood, the sound echoing through the cavernous office. Every nerve in his body was alive with a cold fury, a rage that had been simmering since Sir Levi's storming exit. Without a word, he pushed past the heavy desk and strode toward the office door, each step heavy with intent.
The corridor was bright under the stark fluorescent lights, but Ethan barely noticed. His mind replayed the conversation, Sir Levi's words like knives twisting inside him. He had been challenged, humiliated, and now he thought, betrayed.
As he walked past a cluster of board members huddled near the elevator, their murmured voices brushed against him like a whip. He didn't slow, didn't glance in their direction, his focus unshakable. Yet one phrase cut through the haze of his anger and landed with shocking clarity:
"That's why it's not good to trust poor people... with just a little sum of money, the girl handed over her copy."
Ethan froze mid-step. The world seemed to tilt. Lena? The voice repeated the accusation in his mind, louder than the hallway chatter: Lena had betrayed him.
His heart slammed in his chest. The air in the corridor felt too thin, the lights too bright, the murmurs of people around him too distant. Everything except that single truth, the girl he trusted with everything, the one he had shared his life with, had handed over their most sacred agreement to the enemy.
A burning, suffocating anger rose from his chest, wrapping around his stomach like molten steel. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms. Ethan's mind raced, though the thoughts refused to form logically. Strategy, reason, calculation, they all dissolved under the pure, white-hot rage consuming him.
He turned sharply toward the exit and strode through the corridors like a storm in motion. The security guards instinctively stepped aside, sensing the intensity radiating off him. Each footfall seemed to shake the polished floors beneath him.
By the time he reached the garage, his chest heaved, and the tightness in his stomach had grown into a burning knot. He didn't pause to think, didn't take the time to plan. Every rational thought had been overtaken by a singular thought, she had betrayed him.
He flung open the door to his sleek black car. The driver looked up in apprehension, instantly sensing the severity of Ethan's mood.
"Drive. Now," Ethan barked, his voice low and dangerous, the kind that made everyone around him recoil. His eyes, dark and stormy, remained fixed straight ahead, refusing to meet anyone's gaze.
As the car's engine roared to life and they sped off, Ethan leaned back in the leather seat, jaw tight, hands still trembling slightly from the surge of adrenaline and anger. Every second that passed, the heat in his chest flared hotter, threatening to consume the cold, calculated version of himself he so carefully cultivated.
He couldn't think clearly. He couldn't plan. There was only one imperative burning in his mind: get home, face Lena, and get answers.