After almost an hour of listening to a boring lecture on laws and business, the awaited moment arrived. Khloe’s father signaled to the solicitor. The solicitor handed a dark blue folder to Ethan. Ethan’s hands trembled as he received it. He opened it slowly, expecting to see a check or a security certificate. However, the folder was empty. There was only a blank sheet of paper inside. Ethan frowned in confusion, looking at Khloe’s father with a questioning expression. Khloe’s father smiled slightly, a smile that did not reach his eyes. He said calmly that before handing over the original documents, there was an indispensable condition that the beneficiary had to fulfill. That condition was the verification of family harmony through family documentation.
Ethan and Sharon looked at each other, confused. Family documentation. They had to take a photo together. Ethan nodded quickly, saying he was willing to do anything. He even put his arm around his mother’s shoulder, showing how harmonious they were. Isla beside him remained silent, feeling a bit excluded from the happy family scene.
Khloe’s father picked up a small remote control from the table, pressed a button, and the automatic blinds closed, darkening the room. A large projector screen slowly descended from the ceiling. Ethan smiled broadly, thinking they were going to watch a wedding video or Khloe’s childhood photos as a nostalgic gesture before the inheritance handover. He was already prepared to put on an emotional face. The projector screen lit up with a brilliant white, dazzling for a moment. Then an audio visualization appeared, moving sound waves. There was no image, only sound. Silence took over the room, and then the voice was heard. A very familiar voice. Ethan’s voice. Clear, loud, and undistorted.
“Relax, darling. Just wait until the $10 million check from that stupid woman’s father clears. I will divorce her, and the three of us will enjoy the money with our child.”
Ethan’s face, which was previously radiant, turned as pale as the blank paper in the folder. His eyes widened, staring at the screen as if seeing a ghost. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His heart seemed to stop. Before he could process what was happening, the next voice appeared. A woman’s voice.
“My friend is a complete idiot, isn’t she, darling?”
It was Isla’s voice. Isla, sitting in the room, flinched. She instinctively covered her mouth. Her eyes widened, looking at Khloe in horror. Then the laughter of both of them was heard. A mocking, condescending laugh. A laugh that at the time seemed so pleasant to them, but now sounded like the death knell. The recording continued, playing the disgusting conversation about their plans to raise their illegitimate child with Khloe’s father’s money, about how sick Ethan was of his wife, and how naïve Khloe was in their eyes. With each passing second, the air in the room seemed to become scarce for Ethan, Isla, and Sharon. Sharon sitting in the middle seemed to have suffered a mild stroke. Her face was frozen, her breathing shallow. She turned her head stiffly towards her son, then towards Isla, and finally towards Khloe, who was sitting quietly with an impassive face.
Khloe was not looking at the screen. She was looking directly at the three people in front of her, enjoying every grimace of terror that appeared on their faces. Khloe’s gaze was cold, penetrating, and deadly. There was nothing left of the sweet and obedient Khloe. There stood a betrayed woman who now stood as the judge of her betrayers. The recording ended with the dramatic click of the phone hanging up.
The lights in the room came on again, exposing the faces of the sinners, now covered in cold sweat. The silence that followed was much more terrifying than the sound of the recording. No one dared to speak. Ethan felt his knees weaken. He clung to the arms of the chair to keep from falling. He tried to find words to defend himself, but his mind was blank. The truth was too obvious, too naked.
Khloe’s father placed the remote on the table with a sharp thud that made them jump. It was the judge’s gavel that began the real trial.
The atmosphere in the VIP boardroom turned into a frozen hell. The air conditioning could not cool the thick beads of sweat running down Ethan’s temples. He swallowed, the saliva feeling like thorny sand in his throat. His cunning mind desperately sought an escape, an excuse, a scapegoat. With a trembling voice, Ethan finally broke the silence. He stood up on shaky legs and pointed at the now empty screen. He shouted in a forced tone that it was all a lie. He accused the recording of being fake, a product of artificial intelligence or deep fake technology. He swore on God and his mother’s life that he had never said such vile things. He acted as if he were the victim of a cruel slander, hoping to see a glimmer of doubt in his father-in-law’s eyes. Sharon, hearing her son’s defense, instantly joined in with crocodile tears that suddenly welled up. She lamented that her son was a good man, incapable of committing adultery or having bad intentions. She even dared to accuse Khloe of fabricating the recording out of jealousy or to keep the entire inheritance for herself.
Isla, for her part, chose to remain in sepulchral silence. Her face was as pale as wax. She kept her head down, not daring to look at anyone. Her survival instinct told her the situation was hopeless. Khloe listened to all these denials with an ironic and disdainful smile. She was not surprised. She had already anticipated that Ethan would hide behind the excuse of technology.
Without a word, Khloe opened her briefcase, took out a thick brown envelope, and threw it into the center of the table right in front of Ethan. The envelope slid smoothly over the polished surface, and stopped when it hit Ethan’s water glass. You cannot fake an ultrasound or the chat history on your mobile, darling,” Khloe said in a flat tone that chilled the bones.
Ethan’s hands trembled violently as he opened the envelope. Its contents spilled out. Ultrasound photos of a fetus with the patient’s name, Isla, clearly printed in the top corner, along with the date of the scan, which coincided with one of Ethan’s business trips. There was also a stack of screenshots of WhatsApp conversations between Ethan and Isla, full of affectionate words, secret wedding plans, complaints about Khloe, and proof of the monthly transfers Ethan sent to Isla’s account. And to make matters worse, there was the photo of the baby goods purchase receipt that Khloe had found in Sharon’s handbag with Ethan’s membership number included. All the evidence was real, physical, and irrefutable. Ethan’s denial about AI was shattered before those papers. Ethan collapsed into his chair, defeated, his shoulders slumped, his gaze lost in the ultrasound photo he held in his hand. He was finished. He was completely finished.
