He Forged My Name to Give Away Our Home, So I Gave Away His Chapter 17

He Forged My Name to Give Away Our Home, So I Gave Away His Chapter 17

The papers didn’t fly far.

The winds shifting across the rooftop created a sudden vortex, slamming the photocopied sheets right back against the industrial water tank before they drifted down onto the gravelly roof.

Daisy was the first to react, throwing her entire body flat onto the concrete to pin the documents

down.

“Don’t anyone move a single muscle!” she yelled.

Chloe froze completely.

She had never expected that the devastating canyon she tried to forge would end up tripping her

first.

Secretary Smith’s MPs rushed forward instantly, tackling the envelope from her hands and pulling

her securely away from the ledge.

Chloe thrashed wildly against their grip.

“Let go of me! Get your hands off me!”

Ethan didn’t offer her a single glance.

He slowly dropped to his knees, picking up one of the scattered photocopied sheets that had landed

near his boots.

The name Clara Bennett was typed clearly across the header.

And printed right next to the informant line was the name:

Arthur Miller.

Arthur Miller-Ethan’s father.

The blue veins on the back of Ethan’s hands bulged violently against his skin.

I walked over and calmly slid the paper from his trembling fingers.

“Where exactly did she unearth these files?” I asked.

Chloe grit her teeth, sealing her lips shut in a furious scowl.

Secretary Smith commanded his men, “Take her down to the interrogation room. We will get the

answers there.”

As Chloe was marched past Ethan, she spat out one final scream.

“You hate me now, Ethan?! You should be bowing down to thank me! If it weren’t for me, you would have spent your entire life completely oblivious to the disgusting crimes your precious father

committed!”

Ethan stood frozen on the roof, looking like a hollow shell.

Daisy scrambled up from the gravel, her clothes completely covered in grey dust and spot.

“Ava, I got them. Every single page is accounted for.”

I took the papers from her.

“Thank you, Daisy.”

Her eyes were rimmed with red, her voice shaking.

“Don’t be afraid, Ava. I’ve got your back.”

“I’m not afraid,” I replied softly.

Downstairs, General Caldwell had already arrived at the hospital courtyard.

After reviewing the photocopied sheets, the General issued a single, absolute directive to Secretary

Smith.

“Subpoena the central historic archives immediately.”

Secretary Smith moved to execute the order on the spot.

Ethan finally broke his silence, his voice incredibly raspy.

“I will go back to the Miller estate and secure the original files myself.”

I looked at him coldly.

“Are you entirely certain your father will just hand them over to you?”

“If he refuses, I will tear the house apart to get them,” he replied grimly.

General Caldwell fixed a heavy, commanding gaze upon him.

“Major Miller, if your father truly orchestrated this crime decades ago, how do you intend to resolve it?”

Ethan’s voice was completely choked with emotion.

“Whatever debts are owed will be paid in full. Whatever crimes were committed will be fully

confessed.”

I looked away. “This is no longer a matter for you to settle privately.”

“I know,” he whispered.

By one in the morning, the historic Miller estate was fully illuminated, every single light blazing.

I hadn’t wanted to set foot inside that house ever again.

But General Caldwell had insisted, “This concerns your mother’s life’s work, Ava. You have every legal right to be present.”

Ethan drove us there.

He didn’t utter a single syllable during the entire journey.

The moment we stepped into the grand living room, Arthur Miller was sitting on the sofa, his face completely iron-clad and furious.

“Storming into my home with a squad of MPs in the middle of the night-what on earth do you think you are doing, Ethan?!”

Ethan marched forward and slammed the photocopied sheets onto the mahogany coffee table.

“Dad, is this your signature or not?”

Arthur Miller took one glance at the informant line, and his posture instantly stiffened.

“Where did you get your hands on this?”

I stepped forward into the light.

“Answer his question first, Mr. Miller. Is it yours?”

Arthur Miller looked at me, his eyes filled with an incredibly complex mix of guilt and

defensiveness.

“Ava… these are ancient matters from a chaotic era. Don’t let external agitators manipulate you.”

“Did you or did you not file a fraudulent whistleblowing report against my mother?” I demanded, my voice cutting through the room.

He lowered his gaze, his voice deep and tight.

“The political and medical environment back then was incredibly convoluted.”

Daisy let out a sharp hiss from behind me.

“Convoluted is just a coward’s word for ‘yes, I did it’!”

Arthur Miller glared at her.

“This is private family business. You have no standing to speak here.”

Just then, General Caldwell stepped into the room, leaning heavily on his brass-handled cane.

“Then do I have the standing to speak here, Arthur?”

Arthur Miller’s face completely lost all color.

“General Caldwell! What… what brings you here at this hour?”

General Caldwell sat down heavily on an armchair.

“I came here to listen to your definition of ‘convoluted’.”

Beads of sweat began pouring down Arthur Miller’s forehead.

Ethan stared down at his father, his eyes bloodshot.

“Dad… please.”

Arthur Miller finally let out a long, defeated sigh.

“Decades ago… your grandfather made a catastrophic dosing error during a critical operation. The patient almost died on the table. It was Clara Bennett who stayed up all night rewriting the entire chemical protocol to save that patient’s life. But when the hospital board launched an audit into the

initial malpractice, I… I panicked. I couldn’t let the Miller family’s medical legacy be ruined. So I

compiled fabricated logs to shift the entire blame onto Clara.”

My voice was trembling with pure rage.

“So my mother was the one who corrected the error, yet you framed her as the criminal?!”

Arthur Miller fell into a dead silence.

General Caldwell slammed his cane hard against the hardwood floor.

“Speak!”

Arthur Miller closed his eyes tightly.

“Yes.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Ethan looked as though his entire world had crumbled into ash.

I pressed further, my voice shaking.

“And why did my mother never defend herself?”

From the top of the grand staircase, a frall, trembling voice answered.

“Because she chose to protect the patient.”

Mrs. Miller-Ethan’s mother-was leaning heavily against the banister, looking utterly exhausted She slowly walked down the stairs, tears streaming down her face.

“To ease your grandfather’s suffering back then, I was the one who secretly added an unverified

traditional herb to his private stash. Clara discovered it, and she chose to rewrite the chart to keep the legal liability from destroying our household. When the board came down hard, Arthur pushed her into the line of fire. Clara told me that as long as the patient survived, she didn’t care about the titles-she only asked that the leather-bound medical journal be preserved in a place where it

could continue to teach and save lives.”

General Caldwell closed his eyes, a tear escaping his weathered lashes.

“Clara… you absolute fool of a saint.”

I stared at the Miller couple, my chest heaving.

“So you took my mother’s noble silence and used it to preserve your precious family pride. And

after she passed away, you orchestrated an arranged marriage to ease your own disgusting guilt.”

With a dull thud, Ethan collapsed to his knees.

He wasn’t kneeling to beg me.

He was kneeling right in front of his parents.

“Why… why did you never tell me a single word of this?!” he roared, his voice breaking completely.

Arthur Miller snapped back defensively, “Tell you?! What good would that have done?! To make you despise your own flesh and blood?!”

Ethan looked up, his eyes filled with pure despair.

“And

you

think I don’t despise you right now?!”

Arthur Miller choked on his words, completely silenced.

i packed the photocopied sheets back into my bag.

“I want the original files.”

Arthur Miller muttered, “The originals were shredded years ago.

“They are inside the study safe,” Mrs. Miller countered quietly, her voice hollow.

Arthur snapped his head toward her.

“Are you insane, Eleanor?!”

Eleanor Miller burst into a loud sob.

“I’ve been living in insanity for twenty entire years, Arthur! Every single year on the anniversary of Clara’s death, I haven’t been able to close my eyes without seeing her face!”

General Caldwell stood up firmly.

“Open the safe.”

The steel door clicked open.

The original whistleblowing files, the historic clinical logs, and Eleanor Miller’s handwritten

confession regarding the unauthorized medication-everything was preserved inside.

I flipped through the pages one by one.

My fingertips felt entirely frozen.

Ethan stood behind me, completely paralyzed, not daring to take a single step closer.

I handed the entire stack over to Secretary Smith.

“Issue a public clarification first thing tomorrow morning.”

Arthur Miller raised his voice in a desperate plea.

“Are you completely determined to utterly destroy the Miller name?!”

I turned around and looked him dead in the eye.

“When the Miller family systematically destroyed my mother’s entire life decades ago—did you ever stop to ask her that question?”

He had no answer.

I turned and walked out the front doors.

Ethan came sprinting down the stone steps after me.

“Ava!”

I stopped but didn’t turn around.

“I… I would never dare ask for your forgiveness,” he choked out.

“Then don’t ask,” I replied flatly.

He lowered his head, his shoulders shaking.

“I will sign the divorce papers.”

I looked into the dark horizon.

“Return my mother’s pristine honor first.”