1272 The Billionaire Chairwoman’s Revenge: He Publicly Mocked My Pregnancy At His Promotion Gala—Until I Walked On Stage, Seized His Empire, And Fired Him As His Boss / Chapter 28 / 50

Chapter 28 - The Ghost of Alexander

The steady, rhythmic sound filled the quiet examination room on the fourteenth floor of Columbia Presbyterian:

*Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.*

The baby’s heartbeat was strong, rapid, and clear, echoing through the small speaker of the ultrasound monitor.

Dr. Catherine Reynolds, my personal obstetrician and one of the few people who had known the truth about the IVF procedure from the very beginning, wiped the warm gel from my abdomen with a soft towel and smiled warmly.

"She’s resilient, Victoria," Dr. Reynolds said, handing me a glass of water. "Just like her mother. Her growth percentiles are perfect. Her lung maturity looks exceptional. But your blood pressure is creeping up into the mild preeclampsia zone. You’ve been running on pure adrenaline for seventy-two hours."

"The board meeting is at two o'clock," I said, sitting up slowly and adjusting my blouse. "We’re voting on the final debt restructuring."

"The board meeting can happen without you for forty-eight hours," Dr. Reynolds said, crossing her arms, her tone shifting from doctor to maternal friend. "Alexander didn't leave you that trust so you could die of a stroke on the forty-fifth floor of an office building. He left it so you could build a life for this child. You’re thirty-six weeks, Victoria. Any day now, this baby is coming."

At the mention of Alexander’s name, a quiet, familiar ache tightened in my throat.

Alexander had died two years ago in a private plane crash over the Rockies—an accident that everyone had accepted as a mechanical failure during a blizzard. It was in the wreckage of that grief that Jonathan Vance had slipped into my life, presenting himself as a compassionate ally, a shoulder to lean on, an ambitious executive willing to carry the weight of Sterling Global while I mourned.

I had married Jonathan six months later, desperate to feel grounded, desperate to fulfill the promise I had made to my father to maintain the family line. It had been the greatest mistake of my life.

"I know, Catherine," I whispered, looking down at the black-and-white printout of the ultrasound scan in my hand. "I just needed to make sure she was safe from them."

"She is safe," Dr. Reynolds said gently. "The legal walls are up. The Vance family is finished."

My phone buzzed on the side table. It wasn't Elena, and it wasn't Frank.

It was an encrypted message from an anonymous domestic number, routed through a proxy server in Denver.

I opened the notification.

Attached was a single photograph of an old, faded flight log from the Aspen municipal airport, dated November 14, 2022—the night Alexander’s plane went down.

Beneath the image was a short, chilling text:

*Jonathan was too weak to forge an engine inspection report on his own. Look at who paid the ground mechanic in Colorado three days before the flight. It wasn't Eleanor.*

My breath caught in my throat. My vision blurred for a split second as the room seemed to tilt.

"Victoria?" Dr. Reynolds asked, immediately reaching out to steady my shoulder. "What is it? Your monitor just spiked."

"Nothing," I whispered, my heart slamming against my ribs with a terrifying, hollow thud. "Just... a corporate detail."

I stood up, my fingers clutching the phone so tightly the glass groaned under the pressure.