Chapter 8 - The Lawyer Between Them
Adrian Locke denied forging anything.
He admitted joining Cassandra’s legal team.
Conflict?
Potentially.
Ethics counsel investigated.
Then Mabel remembered why she fired him.
Before her wedding, Adrian repeatedly warned:
“Do not merge your financial life with Flynn Whitmore.”
Mabel thought he disliked Flynn.
Maybe he knew more.
He did.
Harrison had privately approached Adrian before the wedding.
Offered $500,000 if Mabel signed a revised prenup weakening Hale protections.
Adrian refused.
Then made a mistake.
He never told Mabel.
Why?
Client confidentiality?
Harrison wasn't his client.
No excuse.
Adrian said Charles asked him to stay quiet while Charles investigated.
Again.
Older men deciding what Mabel was ready to know.
She fired him emotionally six years ago for being “too negative” about Flynn.
He had accepted blame rather than reveal Charles’s investigation.
Now he regretted it.
But did he forge letter?
Forensic metadata traced first digital version to Harrison Whitmore’s old estate server.
Created seven years earlier.
Before Charles died.
Before Cassandra’s current lawsuit.
Who created it?
User account:
Harrison.
Harrison had fabricated Charles’s letter himself.
Why never use it?
Possibly leverage.
He died before needing it.
Cassandra found it in archived server and submitted it as genuine.
Did she know it was forged?
Emails showed Adrian warned her authenticity was questionable.
She filed anyway.
That crossed another line.
Then court temporarily rejected her request pending authentication.
Trust remained active.
Cassandra’s position weakened.
Flynn finally removed her from all remaining executive authority.
Mabel asked:
“Because she manipulated you?”
Flynn answered:
“Because she submitted something she knew might be false.”
Better reason.
Then Flynn did something unexpected.
He voluntarily stepped down as CEO during governance review.
Not permanently.
Temporary.
Independent COO became acting CEO.
Flynn said:
“I can't argue everyone else has conflicts while pretending I don't.”
Mabel was surprised.
Selina too.
Cassandra called it surrender.
Maybe.
Or growth.
Then Mabel’s own conflict surfaced.
As trust beneficiary and Flynn’s divorcing spouse, she could not participate directly in decisions affecting Flynn’s employment compensation.
She recused herself.
Important.
No heroine magically controlling everything.
Then Selina gave birth four months later.
A healthy girl.
Olivia Avery.
Flynn attended.
Selina allowed him in room.
But they were no longer a couple.
He held Olivia and cried.
Mabel learned later.
She felt something complicated.
Not jealousy.
Grief.
Flynn had rejected Evelyn in her first minutes because she was a girl.
Now he loved another daughter.
Would Evelyn someday ask why?
Yes.
Mabel decided she would tell truth age-appropriately.
No invented heroic father.
No poisoned version either.
Then Flynn asked to see Evelyn.
Supervised visits had already begun.
He was gentle.
Consistent.
Mabel hated that part of her wanted him to fail.
If he failed, her anger stayed simple.
If he became a better father, she had to accept that someone could deeply harm her and still improve.
Harder.
Then Selina requested meeting with Mabel.
Mabel almost refused.
Agreed at Phoebe’s office.
Selina brought a red folder.
Inside were messages from Cassandra.
One stood out.
Three weeks before Mabel went into labor:
If Flynn sees the boy as his future, he will finally make the decision we need.
Mabel stared.
“What decision?”
Selina shook her head.
“I thought she meant leaving you.”
Another message:
Once he signs the transfer, it won't matter who he stays married to.
Transfer.
Which transfer?
Flynn searched records.
Two weeks before delivery, Cassandra placed a document in his executive signature queue.
He had signed electronically without reading closely.
Flynn went pale.
“What did I sign?”
Marcus found it.
A voting proxy.
Not to Cassandra.
To an entity called Redhaven Partners.
Nobody recognized it.
Except Selina.
Her mother Rebecca had written that name in an old notebook.
May you like
Beside it:
Never let Harrison control Redhaven.
