A Father Under Glass
Chapter 08 - A Father Under Glass
Their daughter spent six days in the neonatal intensive care unit. Emily named her Rose, not because of Alexander's flowers, but because roses survived winter by protecting new life beneath thorns.
Alexander came every morning at six and left whenever Emily asked. He brought meals for Grace, learned every nurse's name, and sat through medical updates without using his wealth to demand special treatment. He never asked Emily to forgive him. He only answered questions.
On the third day, Emily asked the one that had been burning inside her.
“Did you ever agree to marry Isabella?”
Alexander looked at the floor. “I agreed to consider an engagement after the doctors told me my memories might never return. I believed you had taken money and left. I was angry, confused, and ashamed that I still dreamed about a woman I couldn't clearly remember.”
“So you replaced me.”
“I tried to replace pain with a decision that made sense on paper.” He looked up. “It was cowardly.”
The honesty hurt, but it also gave Emily something lies never could: a solid place to stand.
Marcus arrived with worse news. Without Nora's flash drive, the recordings might be dismissed as hearsay. Richard's lawyers claimed Alexander was unstable and petitioned the board to remove him as chief executive. They also revived the embezzlement charges against Emily's father.
“Richard is forcing a vote in forty-eight hours,” Marcus said. “If he wins, he controls the patents and the evidence servers.”
Emily glanced toward Rose's incubator. “Then stop him.”
“We need proof that exists outside Nora's box.”
Grace, who had been quietly scrolling through her phone, suddenly looked up. At the gala she had received a strange voice message from Emily. The call had connected when Richard grabbed for Emily's phone, and it had continued recording inside Emily's purse.
They played it. Richard's threat was clear: Your father's freedom depends on your good judgment. Then came Isabella's admission that she knew Emily was Alex's wife.
“It helps,” Marcus said, “but it doesn't prove the accident or the bribery.”
Emily remembered the clinic visitor logs Alex had found. “The director changed my access nine times. People don't risk prison for consulting fees unless someone gives very specific instructions.”
Alexander understood. “The director may have kept copies as insurance.”
Marcus left for the airport that afternoon.
That night, a nurse discovered a white envelope beneath Rose's incubator. Inside was the missing flash drive and a note written in hurried script.
May you like
My father will destroy anyone who stands between him and the company. He is coming for the hospital records next.
It was signed Isabella.
