I Froze the Shares Before He Could Give Them Away Chapter 10

I Froze the Shares Before He Could Give Them Away Chapter 10

I looked down.

His fingers touched my ring finger; the ring was gone, leaving only a faint indent.

“You knew all along?”

“Knew what?”

“That Leo wasn’t mine. The trust. Arthur. Chloe’s transfers.” His voice was very low. “You knew all

along, so you just watched me walk into this step by step?”

I pulled my hand back.

“You’re the ones who walked into it step by step.”

His eyes were bloodshot.

“Why didn’t you tell me from the start?”

I almost laughed out loud.

“I told you in my last life.”

Richard was stunned.

I looked at him, enunciating every word.

“I told you the diagnosis was suspicious. You said I was jealous of Chloe.”

“I told you the shares weren’t Vance property. You said I was greedy.”

“I told you Chloe was transferring funds. You said it wasn’t easy for a woman raising a child alone.”

His lips moved.

“Eleanor…”

“So in this life, I didn’t tell you.”

I adjusted my brooch.

“I told the Board, the lawyers, the notary, and the police.”

..

He let go.

As I walked out of the conference hall, the flashes were still going off.

This time, the cameras weren’t there to judge me.

They were recording the collapse of the Vance empire.

The subsequent liquidation moved faster than anyone expected.

Three days after Chloe was taken into custody, Arthur Brooks submitted the complete evidence

package.

He turned over emails, voice recordings, and meeting minutes of Richard instructing him to delete trust records, as well as the flow of funds for the shell companies Chloe registered in Leo’s name.

Richard tried to distance himself.

He issued a statement saying he had been deceived by Chloe and was unaware of the financial

details.

But Margaret shut him down with a single email.

In the email, Richard had personally written: Classify the source of the shares in Eleanor’s name as post-marital management income, and handle the original records after the gift is completed.

The timestamp was the night before the annual shareholders’ meeting.

Vance stock prices plummeted.

The Board underwent a temporary reorganization.

As the trust beneficiary and the largest true equity holder, I reclaimed my voting rights. Margaret, representing the trust manager, joined the audit team to freeze related-party transactions and pursue misappropriated assets.

On the fifth day, I went to the hospital’s investigative hearing.

The doctor who had issued my infertility diagnosis years ago sat across the long table, his hair half-white.

Beatrice came too.

She had just been discharged from the hospital, sitting in a wheelchair, her face gray.

The investigators projected the original records on the screen.

The person who registered wasn’t me.

The blood sample barcode wasn’t mine.

The doctor lowered his head and confessed: “Years ago, Beatrice Vance arranged for someone to

deliver the samples and told me to enter the report under Eleanor Sterling’s name.”

Beatrice looked up sharply.

“You’re lying!”

The doctor gave a bitter smile.

“Old Mrs. Vance, the transfer records have already been found.”

The screen switched.

$20,000.

The memo read: Convenience fee.

A tiny sum of money.

So small it was a joke compared to the seven years they had stolen from me.

But it was that $20,000 that bought seven years of my self-reproach.

I sat there, my palms cold.

The brooch was pinned to my lapel, the pin against my skin.

I thought about those afternoons I spent at the hospital alone. The hallways were full of people holding children, and I sat in the corner clutching my number. When the nurse called my name, I stood up like I was being sentenced.

When the report came out, Beatrice only took one look.

She said, “If a woman is in poor health, she shouldn’t be a burden to her husband.”

I remembered that sentence for seven years.

Now the investigator asked me: “Mrs. Sterling, regarding the reputational and mental damage caused by the forged diagnosis, do you intend to pursue charges?”

Beatrice suddenly looked at me.

Her lips were trembling.

“Eleanor, I’m your mother-in-law. Richard is already having a hard enough time; do you have to kill the Vance family?”

I looked at her.

“Didn’t you say the Vance family must have an heir?”

A spark of hope lit up in her eyes.

I said, “Then there has to be a Vance family first.”

The hope in her face shattered.

I turned to the investigators.

“Pursue charges. Every single one.”

Beatrice was formally removed from her board seat that day.

The hospital launched a case against the doctor, and the records of the forged diagnosis were handed over.

When I walked out of the hospital, it was raining.

The water fell on the steps.

In my last life, the night I died, it was raining too.

Back then, I had been kicked out of the Vance house without even an umbrella. Richard had stood inside the door, with Chloe holding Leo behind him. Beatrice had said, “Don’t come back, you’re a jinx.”

The lock had clicked.

I had fallen on the steps, the brooch stabbing my palm, my blood mixing with the rain.

In this life, I opened my umbrella.

Margaret stood outside the umbrella and asked, “Where to next?”

I said, “The office.”