Chapter 5 - The Frozen Assets
The federal detention center in Jiang City was a grim, concrete structure that smelled of old floor wax and institutional despair—a stark contrast to the gold-trimmed luxury Ethan had surrounded himself with for the past two years.
Ethan sat at the stainless-steel table in the visitor’s room, his hands cuffed to a ring in the center of the metal surface. He looked ten years older. His expensive suit was wrinkled, his hair was messy, and the silver custom watch had been confiscated along with his belt and shoelaces.
The heavy iron door opened, and Chloe was escorted into the room by a female guard. She wasn't wearing her designer silk dresses or her diamond necklaces anymore. She was dressed in a standard gray detention jumpsuit, her face pale and entirely devoid of makeup, her long red nails clipped short.
"Ethan!" she wept, collapsing into the chair across from him, her hands shaking as she reached toward him. "You have to get me out of here! The lawyers say they can't freeze my accounts because Sophia’s people already filed a civil injunction! They’ve taken everything! My penthouse, my cars, even the bank accounts my parents left me! They’re saying I’m a co-conspirator!"
"Shut up, Chloe," Ethan muttered, his voice dead, his eyes fixed on the scratched metal table. "Just shut up. There is no money. There are no lawyers. My brother tried to bail me out this morning, but the judge set the bond at fifty million dollars cash. No properties allowed. She knows we don't have it."
"But what about your mother?" Chloe cried, her voice rising into a frantic, ugly whine. "She has her own private trust! She can use that!"
"My mother’s trust was managed by the Shengheng network’s subsidiary bank," Ethan said, a bitter, hollow laugh escaping his throat. "Sophia closed the branch this morning. She didn't even have to sue my mother; she just liquidated the holding company because of a 'structural reorganization.' My mother is currently being evicted from her country club apartment."
The door opened again, and Marcus Vance stepped into the room. He didn't look like a corporate gladiator anymore; he looked like a man who had survived a plane crash. He carried a single, thin file folder under his arm.
"It’s over, Ethan," Marcus said, sitting down at the edge of the table. "I’ve reviewed the state’s evidence string. Sophia didn't just find the transactions; she had full network recording logs of every single email, text message, and encrypted voice call you and Chloe sent for the past twenty-four months. She had a tap on the server before you even proposed to her."
Ethan’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with horror. "Before... before the wedding?"
"The car accident that killed her parents," Marcus whispered, looking around to ensure the guards weren't listening too closely. "The police report said it was a faulty brake line on their sedan. But Sophia’s private security team found the mechanic who took a fifty-thousand-dollar cash deposit from a bank account linked to your brother’s shell company three days before the crash. They’re tracking him in Thailand right now. Ethan... this isn't a financial fraud case anymore. The federal prosecutor is preparing a first-degree murder indictment against your entire family."
Chloe let out a blood-curdling shriek, throwing her head onto the table as she began to hyperventilate.
May you like
Ethan sat perfectly still, the cold metal of the handcuffs biting into his wrists. For two years, he had looked down at a girl in a velvet wheelchair, thinking he had broken her spirit along with her body. He had laughed at her behind closed doors, called her a useless piece of furniture, and flaunted his mistress in her face.
He hadn't realized that the wheelchair wasn't a prison; it was a throne. And he had spent two years walking straight toward her scaffold.
