Chapter 5 - Whispers from the Grave
The hallway outside Room 304 was a blur of flashing medical equipment and anxious footsteps. I pushed past the swinging door with Gemma right at my heels, our hearts pounding in our throats.
Vivienne was propped up against the hospital pillows. Her skin was still deathly pale, and dark bruises lined her wrists from the rough handling of the coffin lid, but her blue eyes were wide, lucid, and burning with a fierce, terrifying intensity.
"Conrad..." she breathed, her voice raspy and broken from hours of oxygen deprivation inside the wooden box.
I rushed to the bedside, dropping to my knees and grabbing her cold hand. "Vivienne. I'm here. I'm right here. You're safe now."
She squeezed my fingers with a surprising strength, her gaze shifting past my shoulder to where my mother, Mason, and Paige had crowded into the doorway. When her eyes landed on my mother, a deep shudder ran through Vivienne's frail frame.
"Florence..." Vivienne whispered, her voice laced with venom and absolute dread. "She was standing right outside our bedroom window that night. She watched Dr. Albright inject me."
The room erupted into collective gasps.
I slowly stood up, turning around to face my mother. Florence didn't run. She didn't cry. She stood tall in the doorway, her grip on her silver rosary loosening as she let out a long, cold sigh.
"You foolish, ungrateful girl," Florence said, her voice dropping all pretense of maternal warmth. She looked at Vivienne not with love, but with chilling calculation. "If you had simply signed the trust transfer papers last month like a dutiful wife, none of this unpleasantness would have been necessary. Pendelton Enterprises belongs to our bloodline, Vivienne. Not to an adopted orphan with no real roots."
I stared at my mother, feeling a nausea so profound it threatened to buckle my knees. "Mom... what are you talking about?"
"I am talking about survival, Conrad," Florence replied coldly, stepping into the room while casting a scathing look toward the hallway. "And your precious wife was about to expose every single asset we own to a woman from the slums. Maeve Higgins."
Vivienne gasped, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks. "Maeve... did she... did she make it to the cemetery?"
"Yes," I answered, my voice shaking with a rage I had never known existed. "She was at the gates. And I turned her away."
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Vivienne closed her eyes, a single tear escaping. "Conrad... Maeve isn't just my birth mother. She brought the original audit reports. The documents proving that Florence and Brenda didn't just drain our corporate accounts—they murdered my adoptive parents twenty-two years ago to steal this company in the first place."
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