The recording continued.
Madison sounded uncomfortable.
“And if he doesn’t take the bait?”
“Then you make yourself useful another way.”
The audio ended.
Ethan stared at the laptop like it had struck him.
Lauren felt no satisfaction.
Only cold clarity.
The affair was real.
Ethan had chosen it.
But Madison had entered their lives deliberately.
Twist one.
Naomi opened another audio file.
Charles again.
This recording was dated twelve days earlier.
A man Lauren did not recognize said, “She’s still pushing the safety review.”
Charles replied, “Then the review has to lose credibility.”
“How?”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
Silence.
Then Charles spoke again.
“Ethan is already compromised. If the marriage becomes unstable, nobody on that board will treat her objections as independent.”
Lauren closed her eyes briefly.
There it was.
The motive.
Not jealousy.
Not lust.
Money.
Two-point-four billion dollars.
Charles did not need Lauren dead.
