SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Chapter 205 Victoria's eyes opened slowly in the hospital room, focusing on Camille's face for the first tin three days. The machines around her bed beeped steadily, marking the rhythm of her recovery. Her skin still looked pale against the white pillows, but the dangerous gray color was gone.

"How long was I out?" Victoria's voice was barely a whisper.

Camille squeezed her hand gently. "Three days. You scared us all." "The company?" "Stable. Dad and Uncle Eduardo helped with the stock crisis. We're okay for now." Victoria tried to sit up, wincing at the effort. "There's something I need to tell you. About Alexander's accusations. About what really happened fifteen years ago." "You don't need to explain anything right now. Just focus on getting better." "No." Victoria's grip on Camille's hand tightened. "If Alexander is spreading lies about Meridian Technologies, you need to know the truth. All of it." Dr. Martinez appeared in the doorway, checking Victoria's chart. "Mrs. Kane, it's good to see you awake. How are you feeling?" "Like I've been hit by a truck. But I need to speak with my daughter and her colleagues about urgent business matters." "I'm not sure that's wise. Your blood pressure is still elevated..." "Doctor, someone is trying to destroy my company based on false accusations about events from fifteen years ago. The stress of not addressing this will be worse for my health than discussing it." Dr. Martinez looked between Victoria and Camille, then sighed. "Thirty minutes. No more. And if your blood pressure spikes, we end the conversation immediately." After the doctor left, Camille called Stefan and Hannah. Both arrived within twenty minutes, their faces showing relief at seeing Victoria conscious and alert.

"Before we start," Victoria said, looking at each of them, "what I'm about to share with you has been locked away for fifteen years. Sof it will be painful to hear. But if Alexander is using doctored evidence to attack us, you need to understand what really happened." She gestured to her briefcase, which Camille had brought from the office. "In the side pocket, there's a key. Take it." Camille found the small silver key, ornate and old-fashioned, similar to the one she'd found in Alexander's office. "That key opens a private safe in my office. Behind the bookshelf, there's a hidden panel. The safe contains documents I've kept about every major legal challenge Kane Industries has faced. Including the Meridian Technologies case." Stefan leaned forward. "Why keep those records separately?" "Because struths are too dangerous to leave in regular files. Because sstories are more complicated than the public versions." Victoria's eyes grew distant. "The Meridian Technologies factory explosion wasn't a simple case of corporate negligence. It was a tragedy caused by multiple failures, multiple people making choices that cost seventeen lives." Hannah pulled out her laptop. "Should I take notes?" "Take everything. Record everything. Because after today, I never want to speak about this again." Camille felt her chest tighten. "What really happened, Victoria?" Victoria closed her eyes, gathering strength. "Fifteen years ago, Kane Industries and Meridian Technologies were competing for a major industrial contract. The client wanted the cheapest bid, the fastest installation, the lowest ongoing maintenance costs. Both our companies submitted proposals." "Alexander said you underbid Meridian to steal the contract," Stefan said carefully.

"We did underbid them. But not by cutting safety measures. We underbid them by accepting lower profit margins." Victoria's voice grew stronger. "Richard Pierce chose a different strategy. He cut costs by using substandard materials and rushing safety inspections." "The factory explosion," Hannah said quietly.

"Happened six months after installation. Seventeen people died when a pressure valve failed during routine maintenance." Victoria's voice cracked slightly. "The valve was supposed to be rated for high-pressure industrial use. Instead, Richard Pierce had ordered residential-grade equipment to save money." Camille felt sick. "Alexander doesn't know this?" "Alexander has been shown selected pieces of a larger story. Someone gave him Richard Pierce's personal journal, which focused on his anger and bltoward me. But they didn't show him the engineering reports that proved the faulty equipment was Meridian's responsibility." "Why would Richard Pierce blyou if his company was at fault?" Stefan asked.

Victoria's expression becpained. "Because I knew about the substandard materials before the explosion happened." The room went silent except for the beeping of medical machines.

"You knew?" Camille's voice was barely audible.

"Two weeks before the explosion, one of Meridian's engineers contacted me. He was concerned about the equipment Richard Pierce was ordering for the installation. He thought Kane Industries should know that our competitor was cutting dangerous corners." "What did you do?" "I documented everything he told me. I had my legal team research whether we had any obligation to report suspected safety violations by a competitor. I spent sleepless nights debating whether to warn the client or stay out of Meridian's business." Victoria's heart monitor began beeping faster as her stress levels rose. "And?" Hannah prompted gently.

"I decided it wasn't my place to interfere. We were competitors. If I reported Meridian's cost-cutting to the client, it would look like I was trying to sabotage them to win the contract myself." Victoria's voice was full of old pain. "I told myself that Meridian's engineers would catch the problems before anyone got hurt. I told myself that Richard Pierce was too experienced to let truly dangerous equipment be installed." Camille felt tears starting. "So you did nothing?" "I did nothing. And two weeks later, seventeen people died." The heart monitor's beeping increased noticeably. Dr. Martinez appeared in the doorway, but Victoria waved him away.

"When the families sued after the explosion, Richard Pierce tried to claim that Kane Industries had sabotaged his equipment. He said we'd deliberately provided him with false specifications to make his installation fail." "That's when you fought back," Stefan said.

"That's when I defended my company against false accusations. But Richard Pierce knew that I had prior knowledge of his cost-cutting. He threatened to make that information public, to claim that Kane Industries knew about the dangerous equipment and chose not to warn anyone." "Which would have made you look complicit," Hannah realized.

"Exactly. So when the courts investigated the explosion, I provided every document showing that Meridian Technologies was responsible for the fa I proved that Richard Pierce had certified the installation as safe when he knew it wasn't. defended Kane Industries by destroying Meridian Technologies completely." Victoria's voice grew quieter. "But I never told the courts about the engineer who warnedbeforehand. I never admitted that I could have prevented those deaths by speaking up two weeks earlier." "You protected yourself by staying silent about your prior knowledge," Camille said, understanding dawning.

"I protected Kane Industries. I protected our employees, our clients, our future. I made sure that Richard Pierce couldn't drag us down with him by claiming we were accessories to his negligence." "But you felt guilty," Stefan observed.

"I felt responsible. Not legally, but morally. I could have saved seventeen lives by warning the client about Meridian's dangerous shortcuts. Instead, I worried about business ethics and competitive fairness while people were about to die." The room fell silent as everyone processed Victoria's revelation.

"So when Richard Pierce's company collapsed and he took his own life," Hannah said slowly, "you felt like you'd caused his destruction?"

"I caused his destruction by exposing his crimes. But I could have prevented his crimes by speaking up earlier." Victoria looked directly at Camille. "I've carried that weight for fifteen years. The knowledge that I chose business considerations over human lives, even if I didn't realize people would die." "Alexander doesn't know any of this," Camille said.

"Alexander has been told a story where I'm a calculating killer who destroyed an innocent man. The truth is more complicated. I'm someone who made a moral choice that hauntsevery day, but I'm not the monster Richard Pierce's journal makesout to be." "Someone edited the story to make you look worse," Stefan said. "Someone wants Alexander to believe I'm evil enough to deserve complete destruction. They've taken real events, real guilt, real consequences, and twisted them into a narrative that justifies revenge."

Victoria's monitor began beeping urgently. Dr. Martinez rushed in with a nurse. "That's enough for today," he said firmly. "Mrs. Kane needs Pest." e "Wait," Victoria called out as they prepared to leave. "The safe in my office. Get those documents tonight.

Study everything. Understand exactly what happened so you can defend Kane Industries when the next attack comes." "What next attack?" Camille asked.

"Whoever gave Alexander the false evidence aboutwon't stop just because he's been exposed. They'll find another way to destroy us. And next time, they might target all of you personally."

As they left Victoria's room, Camille felt overwhelmed by the complexity of what she'd learned. Victoria wasn't innocent-she had chosen business En: considerations over potentially saving lives. But she wasn't the cold-blooded killer Alexander believed her to be either. She was a woman who'd made an impossible choice under pressure, who'd lived with the consequences for fifteen years, and who was now paying the price for someone else's manipulation of the truth.

"What do you think?" Camille asked Stefan and Hannah as they walked toward the elevators.

"I think Victoria is telling us the truth," Stefan said. "But I also think the truth is complicated enough that someone could easily manipulate parts of it to support false accusations." "I think we need to see those documents tonight," Hannah added. "Because if someone has been editing the real story to create fake evidence, we need to understand exactly how they did it." Camille nodded, but her heart felt heavy. Alexander had destroyed their marriage based on lies, but those lies contained enough truth to feel believable. Victoria had failed to prevent seventeen deaths, even if she wasn't responsible for causing them.

The elevator doors closed, carrying them toward a night of painful revelations and difficult truths. But at least now they would be fighting back with complete information instead of manufactured lies.

The question was whether the truth would be enough to save them all.