Chapter 8 - The Counterattack
Ethan had finally managed to find a weapon sharp enough to cut the untouchable Vale family.
Hannah knew perfectly well that federal bribery charges would completely destroy her father's legacy and put him in prison for the rest of his life.
She could not possibly allow Jonathan to suffer just because she had blindly married a desperate monster.
She texted Ethan back immediately and agreed to meet him at the project site the very next morning to sign the papers.
She spent the entire night pacing her room and strategizing, completely refusing to be a helpless victim ever again.
The next day, Hannah arrived at the empty, dusty construction site in the heart of downtown Charlotte.
Ethan was already waiting for her with a disgustingly smug, victorious grin plastered across his face.
Vanessa was standing right beside him in a designer coat, proudly rubbing her slightly rounded belly for Hannah to see.
Ethan aggressively shoved the contract approval forms and a luxury pen onto the hood of his car.
He demanded that she sign over the entire Uptown project to Mercer Construction immediately without reading the fine print.
He smugly promised to delete the audio recording of her father the second the ink dried on the paper.
Hannah slowly took the pen, her hand hovering deliberately over the dotted line.
She looked Ethan dead in the eye and told him that blackmail was a very dangerous game for a man with so many dirty secrets.
Ethan laughed loudly and told her to stop stalling and just sign the damn paper so they could all move on.
Hannah pressed the tip of the pen to the paper, but suddenly the deafening wail of police sirens filled the morning air.
Four black armored FBI vehicles skidded violently onto the dirt lot, kicking up massive clouds of dust.
Federal agents swarmed out of the vehicles with their tactical weapons drawn and aimed.
Ethan dropped his smug smile instantly and immediately put his trembling hands high in the air.
He screamed frantically that he had absolutely nothing to do with Jonathan Vale's zoning bribes.
The lead federal agent ignored Ethan completely and walked straight past him toward the portable office.
The agent violently grabbed Thomas Whitaker, who had just stepped out of the nearby trailer to greet them.
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He loudly placed Thomas under arrest for massive corporate embezzlement and federal wire fraud.
Hannah smiled coldly, having secretly tipped off the feds last night about Thomas using Vanessa's stolen corporate blueprints.
