All Chapters of His Useless Wife Was A Queen : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Chapter 42Nora's POVI called Bree into my office on Sunday morning.Bree was twenty-seven, sharp and quietly ambitious in the way I respected most, the kind of ambition that worked instead of performed. She had been on Hamilton Global's communications team for two years before I returned and she had impressed me consistently since the first week.She came in with her notebook and her coffee and sat down across from me with an expression that said she already knew this wasn't a routine meeting."I need to make a public statement," I said. "Not through the press release. Not through a prepared corporate document. I want to sit down with one journalist and tell a story directly. My choice of journalist. My terms."Bree's pen hovered above her notebook. "What story?" she said carefully."About my sister," I said. "About why I left Hamilton Global eight years ago. About the foundation, where it came from, and what it means." I paused. "The real version. Before someone else publishes a v

Chapter 44Nora's POVThe interview room was my office.I had chosen that deliberately. Dana Reeves arrived at nine-fifty with a small crew… a camera operator, a sound technician, and a producer who moved efficiently and without unnecessary conversation, setting up equipment with the practiced speed of people who had done it in a hundred different rooms. Dana herself was dressed sharply, dark blazer, minimal jewelry, her expression professionally neutral in the way that told you she had already done her preparation and was simply waiting for the real thing to begin.She shook my hand when she walked in."Ms. Hamilton," she said."Ms. Reeves," I said. "Thank you for coming.""Thank you for calling," she said. And she looked at me with a directness that I appreciated. No performance. No warm-up flattery. Just two people about to have a real conversation.We sat. The cameras were set. The sound was checked.Dana looked at me across the small space between our chairs and said, "Ready wh

Chapter 46Caleb's POVI saw the article on Monday morning and my first instinct was to call her, but I stopped myself. I Picked up my phone, put it back down, and picked it up again. Thought about Julian. Thought about the appropriate channel. Thought about the fact that every time I moved without thinking about the appropriate channel lately I created more problems than I solved.So I called Julian anyway. He answered on the second ring and I could hear from the background noise that he was already deep in something."Mr. Stone," he said."I saw the article," I began, despite it feeling uncomfortable. "The fraud allegation. I want you to know that I have documentation from the early Stone Logistics contracts that show the Hamilton Global connection in the founding period. Original correspondence. Meeting notes. Things that could establish a clear timeline of how those early investor relationships actually worked." I paused. "If it's useful to her legal team, it's available. All o

Chapter 48Caleb's POVMarcus Leigh found Brennan at four in the afternoon. He was in a short-stay apartment twenty minutes from the city center, the kind of anonymous place people used when they needed to be somewhere without being findable. Marcus had worked through both addresses Sarah provided and found him at the second one, sitting in a ground floor unit with a laptop, a printer, and a stack of documents he had not yet filed.Diana Reeves's team was there within thirty minutes. I was not there. I was at my apartment following the sequence of events through a series of calls from Julian and Diana, sitting at my kitchen table with a mug of coffee going cold in front of me and the particular feeling of watching something that had been aimed directly at you get stopped at the last possible moment.The fabricated documents were seized. Brennan was taken in for questioning. The custody filing that had been designed to carry my name into a courtroom I had never agreed to enter was dea

Chapter 50Caleb's POVI found out about the phone call on Friday morning.Julian called me just after eight, which was unusual enough on its own. He wasn't an early-morning person, and the moment I heard his voice, I knew something had changed overnight."There was a development last night," he said. "I need to brief you because it connects to the Brennan situation. And because Nora asked me to keep you informed going forward."I straightened in my chair."She asked you to keep me informed?""On matters involving Mia's safety," Julian clarified carefully. "Yes."Something tightened in my chest."What happened?""Nora received a phone call last night from a number she didn't recognize. She answered it." He paused. "The person on the other end identified himself as Howard Graves."Every muscle in my body went still."Howard Graves died in 2019," I said. "Victor Crane told her that.""Yes. Which is exactly why this matters."I pushed a hand through my hair."Who was it really?""We're w