Chapter 7 - CHLOE'S FACE
Chloe met me in a private recovery room at Bellrose.
Her face was still swollen along the jawline.
Until then, I had accepted the family explanation.
A cosmetic procedure.
Something Chloe wanted.
Something Evelyn paid for.
That story lasted less than a minute.
Chloe closed the door.
“I had a facelift revision and reconstructive work.”
“Why reconstructive?”
She looked down.
“Because Mom hit me.”
I stared at her.
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“With what?”
“A glass.”
The room felt smaller.
Chloe told me she had confronted Evelyn about Larkspur after seeing an unfamiliar transfer on a foundation statement.
Evelyn denied everything.
Chloe threatened to ask Sarah.
Evelyn threw a heavy crystal tumbler.
It struck Chloe near the cheekbone.
The cut healed.
The damage underneath did not.
Robert told Chloe they would handle it privately.
He arranged Bellrose.
Then Evelyn paid the clinic through Larkspur.
Seventy-four thousand six hundred dollars.
Company money.
The surgery had not only repaired Chloe’s injury.
They added cosmetic work so the family could describe the entire procedure as elective.
I felt sick.
“Why didn't you tell Sarah?”
“Because Dad said Mom would be destroyed.”
“Your mother hurt you.”
“I know.”
“Then she watched your father shove your pregnant sister down stairs.”
Chloe closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“Why take the envelope?”
“Mom told me to.”
There it was.
“She said Sarah had stolen private documents and was trying to embarrass us at her birthday.”
“Did you believe her?”
“At first.”
“Then?”
“I saw Dad push Sarah.”
Chloe's hands started shaking.
“I realized it was the same thing.”
“What?”
“The story after.”
After Evelyn struck Chloe with the glass, Robert told everyone she had fallen while holding it.
After Robert shoved Sarah, Evelyn immediately began calling the fall an accident.
The family response was not spontaneous.
It was practiced.
Chloe unlocked a clinic locker.
Inside was the blue envelope.
She handed it to me.
Three Larkspur invoices.
The Bellrose transfer.
A corporate-vendor certification.
And a photocopy of a bank document.
The paper identified Larkspur’s second beneficial owner.
Not Neil.
Not Robert.
A trust.
BENNETT HERITAGE IRREVOCABLE TRUST.
Trustee: Robert Bennett.
Beneficiary: Robert Bennett.
Robert controlled the other thirty percent.
Both of Sarah’s parents owned the vendor secretly receiving millions from their company.
Chloe wiped her face.
“There’s more.”
She took out her phone.
The night Evelyn injured her, Chloe had begun recording after the glass hit.
Most of the audio was crying and shouting.
But one sentence was clear.
Robert’s voice.
“Evelyn, stop panicking. Sarah hasn’t found the loan yet.”
The loan.
A new question.
Sarah had found Larkspur.
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But apparently Larkspur was hiding something underneath it.
📖 Chloe finally chose Sarah over their parents, and her recording proved Robert feared not just the stolen millions but a hidden loan Sarah had never discovered. 👇
