Chapter 2
Manuel carefully cleaned the wound on her back without calling any domestic staff to assist him. He asked for her permission before touching the cut, left the bedroom door wide open, and promised that no doctor chosen by Emmett would ever step foot inside the estate again.
Rosalie did not completely believe his promise at first, but it was the very first commitment in her life that did not feel like a veiled threat.
Over the next few weeks, their marriage, which had been constructed purely as a business arrangement, began to subtly transform. Rosalie reviewed the financial accounts for Pinecrest and discovered fraudulent charges that were actively harming the local estate workers. Manuel immediately replaced the corrupt administrator, returned the missing money to the staff, and stood by her management decisions.
When a high end dressmaker from a boutique spoken disrespectfully about hiding Rosalie’s body under thick dark fabrics, Manuel fired the woman on the spot. He later apologized to Rosalie for making that executive decision without consulting her first, letting her choose a new tailor herself.
It was not love between them yet, but it was built on deep mutual respect, which already felt like a absolute miracle to Rosalie.
However, Emmett was still scheming from afar to maintain control.
Dr. Callaway showed up at the front door unannounced, claiming he urgently needed to evaluate Rosalie’s fragile mental health. Manuel firmly rejected the doctor in front of the entire household staff, turning him away at the entrance. Two days later, Naomi, who was Rosalie’s personal assistant, mistakenly drank a cup of hot chocolate meant for her employer and suddenly collapsed onto the floor.
An independent medical professional confirmed that the abandoned cup contained a high concentration of a dangerous sedative.
“It was meant for me,” Rosalie whispered as she stood beside Naomi’s hospital bed, realizing her father never intended to let her live long after the wedding concluded.
That very night, she led Manuel to Lorelei’s private archive room, which had been transferred to Pinecrest according to specific instructions in a secondary will that Emmett could not legally ignore.
Rosalie inserted the small metal key, and the lock turned smoothly.
Inside the chest, they uncovered personal letters, hidden bank statements, and a leather notebook written in a simple household code. Rosalie recognized her mother’s handwriting, quickly realizing that Lorelei had been hiding real money under ordinary domestic expenses, where words like candles represented illegal bribes and repairs meant payments to corrupt local officials.
They spent days sitting together at the desk, deciphering each page of the ledger carefully.
Emmett had spent years systematically draining the substantial inheritance that Lorelei had left specifically for Rosalie, including valuable shares in a timber company, land holdings, and an investment trust that was set to pass to her upon marriage or her thirtieth birthday.
However, the most shocking discovery was tucked inside a blue folder.
The documents revealed direct wire payments to an accountant, a local journalist, and a city official who were all directly linked to the corporate scandal that ruined Manuel’s father.
“My father was framed,” Manuel murmured in disbelief, realizing Emmett had deliberately destroyed his family because the elder Nelson had uncovered the ongoing fraud.
Rosalie felt the floor beneath her feet give way, overwhelmed by the sudden revelation. “I was only seventeen years old back then, locked away in a room, and I knew nothing about what he was doing.”
Manuel hesitated for a second before responding, and that brief silence hurt her deeply.
“You are not responsible for his actions,” Manuel reassured her, reaching out to her. “Forgive me for staying silent, as my anger spoke before my reason could catch up.”
At the bottom of the folder, they discovered a secret draft marriage agreement containing a forged legal clause stating that if Rosalie died and Manuel was investigated, the entire fortune would revert straight to Emmett.
Along with the document were photographs of a dangerous sharp turn on the highway to Grand Rapids, accompanied by a typed note from the family lawyer, Wesley Turner, stating that an accident after the transfer would make the husband the primary suspect.
Rosalie suddenly grasped the full scope of her father’s master plan.
Emmett had deliberately chosen a financially ruined man so he could frame him as a greedy murderer in the public eye. She was supposed to die in a planned accident, Manuel would be sent to prison, and her father would legally reclaim every single penny he had stolen.
Suddenly, the loud blare of a fire alarm echoed through the hallways.
Thick gray smoke began to seep rapidly under the wooden office door.
Someone had deliberately set fire to the ground floor beneath the archive room.
Manuel grabbed the blue folder off the table, but Rosalie turned back to grab Lorelei’s coded notebook. Suddenly, a burning wooden beam crashed down right between them, the ceiling creaked ominously, and the glass windows shattered outward from the intense heat.
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“Rosalie, get out of there right now!” Manuel shouted through the growing flames.
Through the dense smoke, Rosalie caught a brief glimpse of a dark shadow sliding the heavy iron bolt shut on the outside of the main door, trapping them inside as the ceiling support snapped and fell directly onto Manuel.
