Eight Years Of Love, A Wedding Ring For Another Woman Chapter 06

Eight Years Of Love, A Wedding Ring For Another Woman Chapter 06

The comments under the audio clip had already exploded, with 

more and more people flooding in by the second. 

[Holy shit, he actually admitted it himself.] 

[He used her parents to threaten her?] 

[Isn’t that a crime?] 

[Did Vanessa know about this?] 

Half an hour later, another gossip account dropped 

screenshots of a chat between Vanessa and one of her friends. 

Vanessa: [That bitch posted on X. She’s so damn annoying.] 

Friend: [Didn’t you say she was the mistress?] 

Vanessa: [So what if she is? I can still make her die.] 

Friend: [What are you going to do?] 

Vanessa: [Doesn’t her dad own a company? I’ll make Ethan go 

after it.] 

Friend: [You think he’ll actually do it?] 

Vanessa: [He’d better. I’ve got dirt on his family.] 

The timestamp on the screenshots was from two months earlier, the exact day my father’s company first got into 

trouble. 

I stared at the screen, my palms damp with sweat. Vanessa had known the truth from the very beginning. She was never some innocent wife misled by a mistress. She had been 

orchestrating it all. 

The mood in the comments shifted completely. 

[So Vanessa was the real mastermind.] 

[They did this together.] 

[Call the police. Arrest them both.] 

Then my phone rang. It was an unknown number, and when I 

answered, a man’s lowered voice said, “Ms. Bennett, I used to work for Sinclair Group. I have something you may want.” 

Three days later, hundreds of people had gathered outside 

Sinclair Group headquarters, holding signs and shouting slogans. 

[Vanessa, get out here!] 

[Justice for Claire Bennett!] 

[A life for a life!] 

I stood inside a café across the street, looking out through the 

floor–to–ceiling window with an untouched hot Americano in 

my hand as I watched the crowd swell below. 

Someone approached from behind me and said, “Ms. Bennett, 

everything’s been sent out.” 

I turned to find a man in his early thirties wearing an ordinary 

jacket, with the kind of face that would disappear in a crowd the second you looked away. 

His name was Daniel Parker, the former head of legal at 

Sinclair Group. 

He was the one who had leaked the screenshots. 

“Thank you, Mr. Parker.” 

He shook his head, his expression unreadable. 

“I worked for the Sinclairs for eight years and saw too much. This time, I just couldn’t pretend I hadn’t.” 

Then he handed me a flash drive. 

“It’s all in here. Financial fraud, bribery records, illegal operations. There’s enough to put them away for twenty years.” 

I took it from him and asked, “What do you want in return?” 

He paused for a second, then gave me a bitter smile. 

“Nothing. I just want one good night’s sleep.” 

With that, he turned and left. 

I looked down at the flash drive in my hand. It was tiny, black, 

and cheap–looking, but inside it was everything the Sinclairs 

had built over decades, along with everything that could destroy them. 

I split the contents into three copies. One went to the 

prosecutor’s office, one to the disciplinary authorities, and 

one straight onto the internet. 

The caption was only one line. 

[This is what they’ve been doing all these years. See for 

yourselves.] 

That same night, Sinclair Group’s stock collapsed. 

The next day, Vanessa’s father was taken in for investigation. 

By the third day, Sinclair Group had been raided, its accounts 

frozen, and every project under its name shut down. 

Vanessa locked herself inside the family villa and stopped 

showing her face, but people still gathered outside every day, 

throwing rotten eggs and spoiled vegetables at the gates. 

Things were no better for Ethan. 

The Carter family company was exposed for tax evasion, 

contract fraud, and bribing public officials. Their business 

partners pulled out overnight, the banks came calling, and employees showed up at the doors demanding unpaid wages. 

Ethan’s father was barred from leaving the country, and his mother was so enraged by the fallout that she landed in the 

hospital with a cerebral hemorrhage and was left partially 

paralyzed. 

Then Ethan called me, and when I answered, his voice came 

through hoarse and ragged, thick with tears. 

“Claire, that’s enough. Please, it’s enough. My parents are finished, the company’s gone, and I’ve lost everything. Please just let me go. I’m begging you.” 

I held the phone to my ear and looked out at the sky beyond 

the window, which was bright blue and streaked with clouds. 

“Ethan, let me ask you something.” 

He went quiet for a moment before answering. “Okay.” 

“That night when you called and told me not to regret it, did you know what I was going to do?” 

He said nothing. 

“And when you tried to force me to post that fake statement, did you know my father would die?” 

His voice trembled. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.” 

I let out a quiet laugh. “No, you didn’t know he would die. You just didn’t care what happened to him.” 

On the other end of the line, he broke down completely. His 

sobs were loud, ugly, and impossible to hide. 

“Claire, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I’m sorry for 

what I did to your parents. I was wrong. I really was.” 

“You were wrong,” I repeated slowly and clearly. 

“Ethan, in eight years, this is the first time I’ve ever heard you say that.” 

He was crying too hard to answer. 

“It’s too late.” 

Then I hung up.