Chapter 4 - The Checkmate
"You rejected the family shares!" Eleanor shrieked, panic finally taking over as two security guards stepped forward to box her in. "You have no power here!"
"I rejected them because I didn't want to be a monster," I whispered, my eyes locking onto hers with absolute, merciless destruction. "But you just created one."
I tossed a heavy legal binder onto her pristine dining table.
"As of twenty minutes ago, I executed the Founder's Clause," I told her, watching the sheer terror dawn in her eyes. "I own fifty-one percent of Harrison Holdings. And my first act as CEO was to liquidate your blind trust. This house belongs to the firm. Your cars belong to the firm. You have exactly ten minutes to pack a single suitcase and walk out the front door, or my men will physically throw you onto the street."
"Ethan, please!" she sobbed, grasping desperately at my arm. "I'm your mother! You can't leave me with nothing!"
"You left the woman I love bleeding on a concrete floor," I sneered, ripping my arm out of her grip. "Consider yourself lucky I'm only taking your money."
I turned my back on her screams, walked out the front door, and got back into the SUV.
An hour later, I was standing in the private VIP recovery suite on the top floor of St. Mary's. I had placed a dozen armed guards at the doors. No one was getting in.
Hannah lay in the center of the bed, pale but breathing steadily. When I walked in, she flinched, her hands instinctively flying to her stomach.
"The babies," she gasped, tears of panic spilling over her eyelashes.
"They're safe," I murmured softly, crossing the room and gently sitting on the edge of the bed. "They're in the NICU. They are perfect, Hannah. You're both safe."
She looked at me, her chest heaving, the trauma of the last five years written in every line of her face. "Ethan... your mother... she..."
"Eleanor is gone," I whispered fiercely, gently taking her callused, scarred hand in both of mine and pressing it to my lips. "She is bankrupt. She is banished. She will never cast a shadow over your life again."
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Hannah let out a broken, exhausted sob. "Ethan, I'm so sorry. I didn't know how to reach you. The babies... their father ran the second I told him I was pregnant. I have nothing."
"You have me," the new king of the Harrison empire vowed, wiping a tear from her cheek. "I don't care who their biological father is. As of today, those twins are Harrisons. And you are my wife. I let you go once because I believed a lie. But I am never, ever letting you out of my sight again."
