Chapter 2 - The Blue Folder.
The accountant’s name was Arthur Bell, and Ethan had known him since childhood.
Arthur was seventy, careful, quiet, and famous inside the family for remembering every number he had ever seen.
When Ethan noticed him closing the folder, instinct told him the gesture mattered.
“Arthur.”
The old man looked up.
Margaret immediately stepped between them.
“This celebration is over.”
She turned toward the guests with a brittle smile.
“My son is exhausted from travel, and there has clearly been a misunderstanding.”
Nobody believed her.
Ethan could see it in the way people avoided her eyes.
He carried Sophie toward an empty lounge beside the ballroom.
“Daniel, call the house physician and ask Mrs. Reyes to come here.”
Margaret stiffened.
Mrs. Reyes had managed the household staff for eighteen years.
She was also the one person Ethan trusted without reservation.
“I dismissed Elena Reyes last month,” Margaret said.
Ethan turned slowly.
“For what?”
“Repeated insubordination.”
Sophie whispered into his collar.
“She gave me sandwiches.”
The room changed again.
Daniel’s face drained of color.
Arthur removed his glasses.
Ethan stared at his mother.
“You fired the woman who fed my child?”
Margaret drew herself upright.
“I fired an employee who ignored my instructions.”
“What instructions?”
Margaret did not answer.
Ethan walked into the lounge and placed Sophie gently on a velvet sofa.
He removed his suit jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Stay right here with Uncle Daniel.”
Sophie grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t go downstairs.”
Ethan crouched beside her.
“Why?”
She looked toward the ballroom doors.
“Grandma gets mad when people go near the locked room.”
Arthur’s chair scraped across the marble outside.
Ethan heard it clearly.
He returned to the ballroom.
Arthur was standing now, the blue folder pressed against his chest.
“What locked room?” Ethan asked.
Margaret’s eyes moved toward Arthur.
“You are making a scene based on the imagination of a four-year-old.”
Arthur cleared his throat.
“Ethan, there are certain household expenses I have questioned.”
Margaret’s expression sharpened.
“This is not the time.”
“It became the time when I saw that child.”
Arthur opened the folder.
Inside were monthly statements from the family household account.
Ethan recognized his own transfers immediately.
Six thousand dollars arrived on the first business day of every month.
Yet the same amounts were moved out within forty-eight hours.
The destination line did not say preschool, childcare, groceries, or medical care.
It said M.C. Events Management.
Ethan looked at his mother.
“What is M.C. Events Management?”
Margaret said nothing.
Arthur answered for her.
“A private company registered eleven months ago.”
“To whom?”
Arthur hesitated.
“To your mother.”
Daniel swore under his breath.
Margaret reached for the folder.
Ethan pulled it away.
“You used Sophie’s money for parties?”
“That is an ignorant interpretation.”
“Then give me the intelligent one.”
Margaret’s composure finally cracked.
“This family has obligations you have never understood.”
Ethan laughed once without humor.
“My daughter eating from a trash bag is not an obligation.”
He opened another statement.
There were charges for floral designers, imported table linens, private musicians, and luxury rentals.
Every page carried the same company name.
Then he found something different.
A payment for twelve thousand dollars had been made three weeks earlier to Westbridge Academy.
For one moment, relief touched him.
At least Sophie’s school existed.
Arthur quietly shook his head.
“That payment was refunded the next day.”
Ethan looked up.
“Why?”
May you like
Arthur reached into the folder and removed a sealed envelope.
“Because Sophie Cole has never been enrolled there.”
