Chapter 2 - The Audit of the TitanCaptain Harrison looked at Clara, then looked at me. Without a single word, he slipped the sealed evidence bag into his tactical jacket pocket, zipping it shut.
"We're transporting the patient to St. Anthony Summit Hospital immediately," Harrison announced flatly. "Mr. Black, you are not authorized to accompany her in the emergency transport vehicle."
"I'M HER HUSBAND!" I screamed, my voice cracking into a raw, pathetic roar that echoed against the snow-covered pines. "I OWN THE BLACK REAL ESTATE GROUP! YOU CAN'T KEEP ME AWAY FROM MY WIFE!"
Harrison didn't flinch. He buttoned his coat, glaring down at me with cold, mountain-bred disdain. "You were buying diamonds in the Maldives while your wife was eating snow to survive an avalanche, Mr. Black. Your money doesn't mean a damn thing up here on this mountain."
The heavy rear doors of the rescue van slammed shut with a thunderous CLANG.
The red tail lights disappeared down the winding, ice-slicked mountain road, leaving me standing alone in the freezing dark of the landing pad.
BZZZ. BZZZ. BZZZ.
The phone in my coat pocket vibrated violently.
I pulled it out with shaking hands. It was Marcus Vance—my chief corporate counsel and long-time personal advisor in Denver.
I swiped the green icon, pressing the receiver to my cold ear. "Marcus! Get the legal team! Get the private helicopters! I need full security access to St. Anthony Hospital right now!"
"Ethan... stop talking and listen to me," Marcus interrupted, his voice laced with deep, trembling panic. "Where are you right now?"
"I'm at the Breckenridge command station! Where else would I be?!"
"Ethan... the news broke twenty minutes ago," Marcus revealed, his breath catching over the line. "Someone leaked the Maldives flight manifests, the Miami hotel receipts, and the eighty-six thousand dollar billing statement from Cartier for Sophia Lane's bracelet. The entire national media is streaming the story live."
My stomach plummeted straight into the ice beneath my shoes.
"It's not just the press, Ethan," Marcus added, his baritone dropping an octave into pure dread. "Clara's father... Lord Arthur Vance... just landed his private jet in Eagle County."
I froze. My hands went completely numb.
Lord Arthur Vance—a legendary seventy-two-year-old corporate litigation titan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and the man whose private investment capital had underwritten seventy percent of my real estate empire eleven years ago.
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For eleven years, I had treated Clara as a quiet, devoted wife who lived in my shadow. I had forgotten that before she took my name, she was Arthur Vance’s only child.
"Arthur has already initiated a full corporate equity recall," Marcus warned softly. "By morning, Ethan... you won't even have an office to go home to."
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