Chapter 9 - The Enemy of My Enemy
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The line went dead with a soft click.
The silence on the porch was deafening. The wind rustled through the oak trees, carrying the cold reality of Victor's threat.
Evan looked up at me from the floor, his eyes filled with a terrifying mix of shame and desperation. "Clara... he's going to destroy everything. He's going to destroy the company."
"He's going to destroy my company," I corrected him sternly. "Because you were too busy buying diamond bracelets for your mistress to notice that your biological father was bleeding us dry from Zurich."
"I can help you," Evan pleaded, scrambling to his feet. "I know the internal software codes! I know how he tried to access the nine million!"
"You don't know anything, Evan," Naomi interjected, stepping between us. "You were the trojan horse. Victor used your vanity to plant Kelsey inside the firm and drain the accounts."
"Then what do we do?!" Barbara cried out, leaning against the doorframe. "If Victor releases those documents, I will go to prison for fraud!"
I looked at Barbara with cold, unyielding disgust. "You should have thought about prison before you called me barren at Christmas dinner, Barbara. You reaped what you sowed."
I turned on my heel and walked down the steps toward the waiting sedan.
"Clara, wait!" Evan ran after me, grabbing the handle of the car door before I could shut it. "Please... don't leave me with nothing. I loved you once, Clara. You know I did!"
I looked at the man I had spent eleven years serving, protecting, and quietly supporting while he treated me like an invisible ornament.
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"You didn't love me, Evan," I said softly, looking him dead in the eye. "You loved the security my father's name gave you. Now you have neither."
I slammed the door shut. Naomi stepped on the gas, leaving Evan standing alone on the driveway as his world dissolved into ash.
