He Forged My Name to Give Away Our Home, So I Gave Away His Chapter 16

He Forged My Name to Give Away Our Home, So I Gave Away His Chapter 16

That very night, the base hospital pharmacy was broken into.

It wasn’t the external dispensing window that was targeted, but the historic archiving cabinets deep

within the back office.

By the time I rushed over, the corridor was crowded with security staff and hospital officials.

Director Lewis was wrapped in an overcoat, his face pale as a ghost.

“Ava, thank goodness you’re finally here.”

Daisy dashed inside to audit the contents of the safe.

“Three historic prescription logbooks are completely gone, along with the internal archiving

registry for your mother’s medical journal!”

I turned a piercing gaze onto Director Lewis.

“Why was the archiving registry for my mother’s private medical journal kept inside the public pharmacy files in the first place?”

He stammered nervously, “The hospital… the hospital conducted a comprehensive data

consolidation project years ago.”

“Who has authorized access to these cabinets?”

“Only senior pharmacy staff and the main hospital administration board.”

Daisy spun around fiercely.

“And Chloe Vance! She was permitted entry into this exact back office a couple of days ago!”

Director Lewis didn’t dare voice a single word of protest.

Heavy, hurried footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor.

Ethan had arrived.

The moment his eyes fell upon the forced lock and the shattered cabinet handles, his expression

grew incredibly dark.

“Where are the security camera logs?” he demanded.

Director Lewis wiped cold sweat from his neck.

“The corridor feed… that specific segment suffered a technical malfunction tonight.”

Daisy let out a sharp, mocking laugh.

“How incredibly convenient! A technical malfunction that hits right when the thief breaks in!”

I knelt down to inspect the tool marks on the metal hinges.

The scrapes were fresh and bright.

Right on the floor beside the baseboard, a tiny thread of light-colored fabric caught my eye.

I picked it up carefully.

Daisy leaned in closer.

“That looks exactly like the wool blend from the custom overcoat Chloe always wears.”

Ethan extended his hand toward me.

“Give it to me.”

I kept it firmly out of his reach.

“This is criminal evidence.”

His hand froze mid-air.

“I will handle the investigation personally,” he urged.

I looked straight into his eyes.

“You will investigate Chloe?”

“Yes,” he replied without a second thought. “I will investigate her.”

“And if the evidence points directly to her?” I pressed.

His answer came without a hint of hesitation this time.

“Then we proceed strictly by the military penal code.”

For the first time in three years, he didn’t try to deflect or make excuses.

I carefully dropped the wool thread into a small evidence bag.

Director Lewis muttered under his breath, “If this matter blows up completely, it’s going to look

terrible for the hospital’s public image.”

I turned a freezing glare onto him.

“Director Lewis, is the ‘public image’ truly the only thing you can think about at a time like this?

He shut his mouth instantly, thoroughly cowed.

Just then, Secretary Smith marched in alongside the base military police.

“Seal the cabinets immediately. Log every single individual who entered or exited this wing

tonight.”

Ethan stepped closer to my side.

“Ava, I uncovered something crucial while auditing my family’s old logs.”

I didn’t offer a response, keeping my face completely blank.

He continued, his voice tight, “When my father proposed our arranged marriage years ago, it wasn’t because your family held a debt over us. It was because someone of immense standing

explicitly commanded him to shield and watch over you.”

I snapped my head up.

“Who?”

“General Caldwell.”

I turned my gaze toward Secretary Smith.

Secretary Smith nodded confirming black-and-white facts.

“The General was stationed out-of-state for medical recovery back then. When he finally returned

to the capital and learned that Dr. Clara Bennett had passed away, he reached out to several trusted

old families, ordering them to look after her surviving daughter. The Miller family was simply one

of the households entrusted with that duty.”

Ethan’s voice dropped to a choked whisper.

“For three years… I truly believed you were a burden and a responsibility forced upon me by my family’s obligation.”

“And because you viewed me as a mere obligation, you felt entitled to arrange every single aspect of my life without my consent?” I countered coldly.

His face turned entirely bloodless.

“I was wrong,” he whispered.

I turned my back on him, refusing to offer any comfort.

Suddenly, a security guard came sprinting down the corridor, completely out of breath.

“We’ve located Chloe Vance! She’s up on the roof of the inpatient pavilion!”

Director Lewis’s knees buckled slightly.

“What on earth is she trying to pull now?!”

Ethan turned and bolted toward the stairwell.

I followed right behind him.

Daisy tried to pull me back by my sleeve.

“Ava, don’t go up there! She’s just setting up another disgusting guilt trip!”

“She has physical files in her hands,” I replied firmly, breaking away. “I need those files back.”

Up on the roof, the midnight wind was howling violently.

Chloe was standing right at the edge of the concrete ledge next to the industrial water tank,

clutching a thick manila envelope tightly against her chest.

The moment her eyes fell upon Ethan, a twisted, manic smile spread across her face.

“You actually came,” she laughed.

Ethan stopped a few paces away, his hands held up cautiously.

“Step down from the ledge, Chloe.”

“Are you terrified that I’ll jump, or are you terrified that I’ll throw these documents into the wind?”

She held the envelope high over the edge.

I stepped forward onto the open roof.

“What exactly is inside that envelope?” I demanded.

When Chloe saw me, her expression contorted into absolute malice.

“Ava Bennett, your luck is truly infuriating! A simple hospital pharmacist, yet you have the Vance family shielding you, the Miller family owing you, and now even Ethan is crawling back to beg for your forgiveness!”

“You broke into the hospital archives just to make a scene out of this?” I asked coldly.

She tore the envelope open, pulling out several sheets of historic photocopy paper.

“These are the original whistleblower reports filed against your mother decades ago! It’s all recorded here in clear, undeniable details-how she hoarded confidential manuscripts and authorized unverified medical treatments!”

Secretary Smith’s voice cut through the wind like steel.

“Hand those documents over immediately, Chloe.”

Chloe took another step back, her heel hovering over the empty air.

“Stay back! If anyone takes another step, I’ll shred them to pieces right now!”

Ethan pleaded, “Chloe, stop piling mistake upon mistake. It’s over.”

She stared at him, tears streaming down her face.

“My mistake? My absolute greatest mistake was believing that you would actually cherish the bond

we shared!”

Ethan replied heavily, “I have never forgotten that we served together, but our history gives you no right to destroy an innocent woman.’

Chloe burst into a hysterical shriek of laughter.

“Served together? You’ve seen that incident report by now, haven’t you? I never saved your life- you were the one who dragged me out of that ditch! But you were so desperately eager to believe you owed me something! You wanted to carry that guilt, so I simply let you carry it for three entire years!”

Ethan looked as though his entire reality had been shattered into pieces.

Chloe spun her glaring eyes back onto me.

“Ava Bennett, you want the absolute truth? Let me tell you who the original whistleblower was.”

My fingers gripped the iron safety railing tightly.

Chloe enunciated every single word with pure venom.

“It was the Miller family.”

Ethan snapped his head up, his voice cracking.

“That’s impossible!”

Chloe’s smile turned thoroughly demonic.

“Go back and ask your own father, Ethan! Decades ago, to completely bury a catastrophic clinical

malpractice incident caused by your grandfather, the Miller family deliberately fabricated charges to frame Clara Bennett and make her the perfect scapegoat! Later, terrified that the truth would leak out, your father forced you into an arranged marriage to keep her daughter compliant and silent under your roof!”

The wind whipped the papers loudly between her fingers.

I slowly turned my eyes onto Ethan.

His face was whiter than the concrete ledge.

I asked him, my voice entirely hollow.

“This time… are you still going to tell me that you didn’t know?”

Ethan’s lips trembled violently, but he couldn’t form a single audible sound.

Chloe watched our undoing with absolute satisfaction.

“Ava Bennett, the man you’ve slept beside for three long years-his family is the true architect of your mother’s ruin.”

With a dramatic flourish, she flung her arms wide.

The photocopied sheets flew from her grip, scattering into the midnight sky.