The music downstairs stopped abruptly.
A massive silence settled over the house.
Charlotte felt the weight of hundreds of people holding their breath below her feet.
Another message appeared on her watch.
The prosecutor is here. Police are on the way. Keep them talking for thirty more seconds.
Charlotte lifted her face.
The tears were still there.
But her eyes had changed.
“Tell me something, Ethan,” she whispered. “When you lock me away… are you also going to say I imagined you and Vanessa?”
His face twisted.
“No one will believe anything you say.”
He opened the folder and slammed the documents in front of her.
“Sign.”
Vanessa stepped closer, lowering her voice.
“And if you refuse, maybe those babies won’t even make it to birth.”
Charlotte stopped crying.
That sentence traveled through the entire house.
Downstairs, a glass table shattered.
Then came footsteps.
Many of them.
Fast.
Furious.
Charging up the staircase.
Ethan turned pale.
Vanessa stepped backward.
Still sitting on the floor, Charlotte touched the diamond at her throat and said:
“You just signed your own conviction.”
The door did not open.
It exploded inward.
The lock broke with a sharp crack, and wood splintered against the wall.
Three police officers entered first.
Grant followed directly behind them, tall and rigid, his face hardened by fury he was barely controlling.
Beside him stood Prosecutor Rebecca Hayes, an old friend of Charlotte’s father.
“Ethan Walker. Vanessa Blake,” she said firmly. “You are under arrest for extortion, criminal conspiracy, corporate fraud, falsifying medical documents, and threatening a pregnant woman.”
Ethan raised his hands, but still tried to smile.
