Chapter 6 - THE BLUE RIBBON
The door to the private suite clicked shut, leaving only the four adults standing around the mahogany table in the center of the alcove.
Richard set his vintage dark leather document case down onto the center of the table, directly beside the white hydrangeas and Ethan’s unused matte-black payment card.
Ethan stepped around the table, his broad chest heaving as he confronted his father, his voice raw with years of suppressed anger.
"What is this, Dad?" Ethan demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous rumble. "Why did you bring Emma here? Why is my son calling you 'Grandpa'? How long have you known about him?"
Richard didn't flinch from his son's fury. He stood calmly, resting his large hands on the leather case.
"I have known about Noah for three years, Ethan," Richard stated flatly.
Ethan felt as if the air had been kicked from his lungs. "Three years...? You knew I had a son for three years and you didn't tell me?!"
"I didn't tell you because you weren't ready to hear the truth," Richard replied coldly. "You were too busy playing the bitter, betrayed heir, drowning yourself in work and allowing yourself to be guided by people who profited from your blind spots."
Richard’s steel-blue eyes darted briefly toward Victoria, who took an involuntary, subconscious step backward, her heels clicking sharply against the floor.
Ethan noticed the movement. His eyes flashed with a sudden, terrifying suspicion as he looked from his fiancée back to his father.
"Did Emma tell you about the letters, Ethan?" Richard asked softly, his voice carrying a strange, heavy solemnity.
Ethan’s brows furrowed in deep confusion. "What letters? She said she sent letters seven years ago, but I never received a single one—"
"She sent eleven letters, Ethan," Richard interrupted.
Emma’s face drained of all color. She stared at Richard, her dark eyes wide with shock. "Eleven...? I only sent six..."
Richard reached down and unlatched the brass fittings of the dark leather document case. He pulled open the leather flap, reached inside, and extracted a thick, weathered bundle of old paper.
He placed the bundle onto the center of the mahogany table.
It was a stack of eleven sealed white envelopes, yellowed around the edges by time, their corners slightly frayed. Tied securely around the center of the entire stack was a single, faded blue silk ribbon.
The camera, panning slowly across the table, never revealed any writing, addresses, or internal contents on the envelopes—only the physical, undeniable presence of the faded blue ribbon binding seven years of lost history together.
Ethan stared at the stack of letters sitting on the wood between them. His hands began to shake violently. He reached out his right hand, his fingers stretching toward the faded blue ribbon to pick up the top envelope.
"Don't touch them yet, Ethan," Richard commanded quietly, placing a heavy hand over his son’s wrist to stop him.
Ethan looked up, his eyes wild with grief and confusion. "Why? If these are her letters... if these are the letters she wrote to me when she was pregnant... why are they here? Why do you have them?!"
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Richard didn't look at Ethan. He turned his head slowly, his steel-blue eyes locking directly onto Victoria Hale.
"Because they weren't in my legal vault, Ethan," Richard revealed, his voice dropping like an iron anvil onto the table. "They were in the safe of the Hale Family Foundation. Where Victoria placed them seven years ago."
