Chapter 5
974words
She gave us no time to process, simply stood, pulled a crisp beige trench coat from the closet, and slipped it on. "Ava, come with me."
"Where are we going?" I asked reflexively.
"To see your Great-Uncle Thomas," she replied, fastening understated pearl earrings. "Every war needs its opening salvo."
Half an hour later, in a private room of an upscale café, I met the legendary Great-Uncle Thomas. He appeared a few years older than Father, silver-haired but sharp-eyed as he savored his espresso.
"Emma, what a rare pleasure," Great-Uncle Thomas glanced up, his gaze briefly assessing me before returning to Mother. "What crisis brings you here in person?"
Mother sat across from him, accepting the offered coffee with grace but not drinking it. "Uncle, I need your support at the next board meeting to propose an ethics investigation of the CEO."
Uncle Thomas froze. He looked up, a calculating gleam behind his glasses as he reassessed this woman who had played the dutiful wife for so many years.
"Ethics investigation?" He set down his tea tongs deliberately. "What exactly has Victor done?"
"What he's done should be no mystery to you," Mother met his gaze unflinchingly. "How many benefits has he funneled to his mistresses' family businesses over the years? The books may look clean, but they leave traces. I have a complete evidence chain."
She slid a USB drive across the table.
Uncle Thomas stared at it, his Adam's apple bobbing. This wasn't just evidence—it was a sword that could sever Victor's hold on power.
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the gentle bubbling of the tea kettle.
"What do you want?" he finally asked, his voice rough.
"My terms are simple," Mother's voice was calm but unyielding. "I want Victor to pay for his actions before the entire family. In exchange, all my evidence of his financial irregularities becomes your stepping stone to the position you've always deserved."
This was a naked power play, stripped of any pretense. I sat beside them, heart racing, witnessing what amounted to a bloodless coup.
"Alright." Uncle Thomas nodded, closing his fist around the USB drive. "I agree. But I have one condition."
"Name it."
"Commercial violations alone won't finish him," Uncle Thomas's gaze hardened. "Grandfather values reputation above all. You need concrete evidence that he's violated the family's moral code—a scandal that would make him unable to face the elders. Only then can I rally enough board members to remove him completely."
Mother's lips curved in the ghost of a smile. "Don't worry, Uncle. I'll deliver something far more devastating than you can imagine."
As we left, Mother didn't glance back. She had what she came for—a promise and a powerful ally.
In the days that followed, our house crackled with tension. Alex remained in his room, no longer broken but focused, constantly on the phone. Following Mother's instructions, he leveraged every connection to hire the city's top private detective to unearth Nina's past.
Three days later, we met the detective at his discreet office.
He handed over a manila envelope with a grave expression. "Mrs. Victor, Mr. Alex, we've uncovered some... disturbing information."
Alex opened it with trembling hands. As he flipped through the documents, his face cycled from flushed to pale to ashen.
I leaned in to look. The first document was a marriage certificate. The woman was Nina, but the man's name meant nothing to me. The date was one year before she'd met Alex.
"She was married?" I gasped.
The detective nodded. "Yes, and she has a child—eight years old now. The boy from that photo you mentioned. She erased her entire past and fabricated a clean, single identity."
Alex swayed, nearly losing his balance. The woman he'd loved so deeply had been a complete fabrication from the start.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
The detective pulled out a yellowed photograph and placed it on the table. A group shot from a decade ago. In it, a young girl with childlike features clung to a middle-aged man's arm, beaming up at him.
The girl was unmistakably a younger Nina. And the man...
"That's... our former financial director, Zhang Wei." Alex's voice was barely a whisper.
My mind buzzed with recognition. I remembered this man—years ago, Father had personally sent him to prison for corruption. Later, unable to bear the shame, he'd committed suicide in his cell.
"Her ex-husband, Zhang," the detective added matter-of-factly, "is this Director Zhang's son."
Everything clicked into place. Nina had known Father long before Alex. She'd hidden her marriage and child. She knew all our family's preferences. None of it was coincidence.
I turned to Mother.
She studied the photograph quietly, showing no surprise—only icy confirmation of what she'd already suspected. Something almost cruel flickered in her eyes.
"She came with vengeance in her heart," Mother's quiet voice filled the room. "Victor thought he was playing a forbidden game, but he was the pawn all along."
She turned to Alex, nearly broken again, and pulled him into a tight embrace.
"Son, none of this is your fault," her voice held rare tenderness, but beneath it, steel. "From the beginning, her target was never you—it was the entire Victor family."
She released him and picked up her phone, scrolling through contacts until she reached the "Family Meeting" group chat she'd created.
She addressed us like a general delivering final orders before battle.
"At the family meeting," her voice turned cold and sharp, "I'll make everyone see exactly what Victor's precious 'love' truly is."
"What he brought into our family wasn't a daughter-in-law," her lips curved into a grim smile, "but a time bomb planted years ago, primed to destroy us all."
