Chapter 2 - The Cold White Room
The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound in the sterile ICU room. Alexander sat in a plastic chair, his elbows resting on his knees, his head buried in his hands. He hadn't changed his clothes. The dried blood on his white dress shirt was a damning reminder of his own blindness.
How had he let it get this far?
Evelyn had never liked Victoria. She had tried to warn him, telling him that the champagne-sipping socialite only cared about the Reed fortune. But Alexander, blinded by Victoria’s charm and his own busy schedule, had brushed his mother off. He had even moved Evelyn into a smaller apartment across town to "keep the peace."
He looked at his mother now, a tangle of tubes and wires keeping her alive. The doctor's words echoed in his head: Severe cranial trauma. Three broken ribs. A shattered collarbone. We won't know if she'll wake up for another forty-eight hours.
The hospital room door creaked open, and Alexander’s lawyer, David, slipped inside.
"Alex," David said softly. "The police are at the mansion. They've viewed the footage. Victoria is currently in custody, but her lawyers are already spinning a narrative. They're claiming temporary insanity brought on by extreme emotional distress."
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Alexander looked up, his jaw set in stone. "I don't care what they spin. I want her buried under the jail. But first, I want everything she owns. Every credit card, every car, every piece of jewelry I ever bought her."
"Done," David nodded. "But there's something else. When we were clearing out Victoria's suite, we found a secondary phone. You need to prepare yourself, Alex. She wasn't just after your money. She was working with someone on your board."
