Chapter 3 - THE BLOODLINE OF THE BELLAMYS
The next morning,
the hospital room felt different.
The sun was brighter,
the air felt cleaner,
and the scent of Ava's perfume had finally faded.
Arthur Sterling arrived at 9:00 AM,
carrying a fresh cup of tea and a mountain of files.
He sat in the chair where my sister had been,
his expression fatherly but professional.
"How are you feeling,
Vivienne?"
he asked,
placing the tea on my tray.
"Better,"
I said,
though the pain was still a constant companion.
"Did they find them?"
"Bennett is at his lawyer's office,"
Arthur replied,
opening the first file.
"Miss Monroe has disappeared from her apartment."
"But that doesn't matter now."
"What matters is the audit."
I took a sip of the tea,
the warmth spreading through my chest.
I thought about my father,
the man who had built the Bellamy empire from a single shipping lane.
He had always told me that a name is a foundation,
but integrity is the steel that holds it up.
I had forgotten that for nine years,
trying to build a life with a man who had no foundation.
Bennett had been a project for me,
a man I thought I could mold into a partner.
I had used my family's connections to secure his first contracts.
I had used my own inheritance to bail out his failing firm in the second year.
Every time he stumbled,
I was there to catch him.
I realized now,
that I wasn't catching him,
I was enabling him.
"He used the Bellamy name to guarantee the loans for the Vale acquisition,"
Arthur said,
interrupting my thoughts.
"He forged your signature on the guarantee forms,
Vivienne."
My hand tightened around the tea cup.
"I knew it."
"We have the handwriting expert's report,"
Arthur continued.
"It's a clumsy imitation,
at best."
"He was desperate."
Desperation is a dangerous thing in a man like Bennett,
it turns greed into a fever.
He had seen the Bellamy wealth as his own,
a bottomless well he could draw from to hide his failures.
"The Greenwich property was his last play,"
I noted.
"If he could have transferred that to Ava's name,
he could have hidden it from the creditors."
"Exactly,"
Arthur said.
"He was planning to leave the country with her,
once the acquisition fell through."
"He knew it was going to fail?"
I asked.
"He orchestrated the failure,"
Arthur revealed,
sliding a series of emails across the tray.
"He was shorting the stock of his own company,
Vivienne."
"He was going to burn the house down,
and walk away with the insurance money."
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.
My husband hadn't just cheated on me,
he had been planning to destroy me financially and socially,
to fund his new life with Ava.
"The medical power of attorney,"
I whispered,
remembering the document in the folder.
"If he had control over my decisions..."
Arthur nodded grimly.
"He could have kept you in a recovery facility indefinitely."
"Claiming you were mentally unstable due to the trauma of the surgery."
The room seemed to tilt for a moment.
I had been sleeping in the same bed as a man who was planning my legal incarceration.
"I want to move forward with everything,
Arthur,"
I said,
my voice gaining a new,
metallic edge.
"The criminal charges,
the divorce,
the civil suits."
"I want the Bellamy name scrubbed from every document he has ever touched."
Arthur smiled,
a sharp,
knowing look.
"I've already started the process."
"By the way,"
he added,
standing up.
"Your sister is in the lobby."
"She's been there all night."
"Let her in,"
I said.
As my sister burst into the room,
I realized that I wasn't just a survivor.
May you like
I was the last of the Bellamys.
And the world was about to remember what that meant.
