Chapter 5 - The File on the Desk
Marcus rushed down the corridor, stopping a few feet away from them, his chest heaving as he held out the manila folder. He spared a brief, suspicious glance at Sabina, who stood with her arms crossed, glaring daggers at the security chief.
“What is it, Marcus?” Chadworth demanded, his patience completely exhausted. “I’m in the middle of cleaning house.”
“Sir, when you told me to check the housekeeper’s background and review the system logs after what we saw on the monitors,” Marcus said rapidly, flipping the folder open to reveal a stack of printed financial statements and legal documents, “I didn't just look at Rosamund. I ran a comprehensive audit on every administrative file updated over the last six months.”
Chadworth looked down at the papers in Marcus’s hands. The bold headers stared back at him with chilling clarity.
Asset transfers. Property deeds. Legal power-of-attorney documents bearing signatures that looked remarkably like his own, yet clearly forged under precise scrutiny.
“Explain,” Chadworth ordered, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper.
“It wasn't Rosamund who was stealing from you, sir,” Marcus said, his eyes darting toward Sabina, whose face had suddenly turned the color of ash. “And it wasn't Rosamund who was manipulating the household staff. Every single requisition order, every transfer of household authority, and every security override was routed through an external shell corporation.”
Sabina stepped back, her eyes wide, shaking her head frantically. “Don't listen to him, Chadworth! It’s a lie! He’s covering for that maid!”
“Shut up,” Chadworth didn't even look at her as he snapped the command, his eyes locked onto the documents in Marcus’s hands.
Marcus handed the top paper to Chadworth. “Look at the beneficiary name on the trust, Mr. Prescott. The shell corporation holding the deeds to your secondary properties, the offshore accounts tied to your personal holdings... they’re all registered under Sabina’s maiden name. And look at the date the final transfer was scheduled to execute.”
Chadworth’s eyes scanned the fine print at the bottom of the page. The date of execution wasn't months from now.
It was scheduled for tomorrow morning—while he was supposedly stuck in Canada, unreachable and legally bound by a pre-signed corporate consent form he had signed during dinner the night before.
A sickening realization washed over Chadworth. Sabina hadn't just been planning to take over the house and terrorize his daughters. She had been methodically executing a corporate and domestic takeover designed to strip him of his entire empire, leaving him legally incapacitated and financially ruined, with his children completely under her thumb.
And the only person who had stood in her way, the only person who had tried to block her path, was the quiet housekeeper he had nearly fired based on lies.
Chadworth slowly lowered the paper, his hands trembling—not with grief, not with fear, but with a cold, absolute fury that burned hotter than anything he had ever experienced in his life.
He turned his head slowly toward Sabina. The woman he had planned to marry stood frozen against the hallway wall, trapped in the web of her own meticulous greed, realizing that her carefully laid trap had just collapsed entirely.
“You didn't just want my house, Sabina,” Chadworth said, his voice dangerously soft as he took a slow step toward her. “You wanted everything.”
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Sabina swallowed hard, her mouth opening to speak, but before she could utter a single word, a loud, heavy crash echoed from the main entrance downstairs—the front doors flying wide open, followed by the sound of heavy boots marching across the marble foyer and an unfamiliar voice calling out through the empty mansion:
“Federal Marshals! Nobody move!”
