SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Chapter 217

James Whitfield stood in his Manhattan office, watching surveillance footage of Alexander talking to Camille, Stefan, Hannah, and Victoria at the event, he saw the look of remorse on Alexander's face. His hands gripped the edge of his desk so tightly his knuckles turned white as he watched Alexander talk to them, and betray everything they had built together.

"Twenty years," James whispered to the empty room. "Twenty years of planning, and this weak-minded fool throws it all away for a woman who destroyed his uncle."

The rage burning in James's chest felt familiar, comfortable even. He had carried this anger for so long it had become part of his identity, as essential to his existence as breathing. But watching Alexander collaborate with the enemy brought that fury to a boiling point that threatened to consume everything in its path.

James turned away from the surveillance screens and walked to the wall where a single photograph hung in an expensive frame. The image showed a man in his fifties wearing a business suit, standing proudly in front of a construction site. The man's smile was genuine, his posture confident, his eyes bright with the satisfaction of honest work completed well.

"I'm sorry, Dad," James said to the photograph. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get justice for what they did to you."

The photograph showed Thomas Smith, a contractor who had built half the schools and hospitals in upstate New York before Victoria Kane and Richard Pierce destroyed his life. James touched the glass covering his father's face, remembering the strong hands that had taught him to use tools, the patient voice that had explained how buildings were constructed to last for generations.

Before Victoria Kane turned his father into a criminal.

James closed his eyes and let the memories wash over him, painful as acid but necessary to fuel his determination. Twenty years ago, Thomas Smith Construction had been competing for the largest municipal contract in the state's history - a new hospital complex that would employ hundreds of workers and establish the family business for the next generation.

Thomas Smith had submitted a fraudulent bid based on substandard materials and exploited immigrant workers who couldn't report safety violations. Victoria Kane and Richard Pierce had submitted an honest bid that exposed Thomas Smith's illegal practices when they reported him to the authorities.

When federal investigators discovered Thomas Smith's criminal enterprise, they found evidence of years of fraud, bribery, and safety violations. Workers had been injured on his construction sites because he used defective materials. Families had been cheated out of their savings through inflated contracts. Municipal officials had been bribed to overlook building code violations.

James remembered the day the federal agents came to arrest his father. The rage in Thomas Smith's eyes as they read charges of fraud, bribery, and conspiracy. The way his voice turned cold as he promised revenge against the people who had exposed his crimes.

"They think they've won," Thomas had said as they led him away in handcuffs. "But I'll make them pay for destroying my business. Victoria Kane and Richard Pierce will regret the day they crossed the Smith family."

But Thomas Smith never got his revenge. He died in federal prison three years into his sentence, killed by inmates who discovered he had been skimming money from a children's hospital construction fund.

James had been twenty-two when his father was arrested, a recent college graduate who had known about the family business's illegal activities but had chosen to look the other way. When the conviction became public, when the newspapers detailed Thomas Smith's extensive criminal history, James had changed his surname to Whitfield and disappeared from his old life.

had spent three years building a new identity, creating a respectable background that had no connection to Thomas Smith Construction. By the time James emerged as James Whitfield, businessman and consultant, no one remembered that

forgotten what Victoria Kane and

the photograph. "I should have made

followed had consumed James's life, but not to discover the truth about his father's innocence. James knew Thomas Smith had been guilty of every charge brought against him. Instead, James had spent years learning how

honest competitors who had simply reported criminal activity to the proper authorities. His father's downfall hadn't been the result

had been taken away, for the wealth that had been

practices. Richard Pierce

Technologies and seemed to have forgotten their partnership in destroying innocent people. James had spent years planning his

had built an empire while James's father rotted in

had decided

T.n

Pierce, fed him information that would turn him against Victoria, encouraged his paranoia and desperation

more extreme action against Victoria Kane, Richard had balked. He had started talking about going to the authorities, about admitting his own mistakes, about finding legal ways to

too much about the evidence that had been fabricated and the witnesses who had been bought. If Richard confessed to the authorities, James would be exposed as the puppet master behind years of fraud and manipulation. So James had arranged for Richard to die. Not suicide, as the world believed, but murder made to look like a

that too. She had rebuilt her reputation, recovered from the scandal, and continued building her empire as if Richard Pierce

complete his

could be manipulated into destroying Victoria Kane from within. A man with access to her inner circle, someone she would never suspect

James had crafted Alexander's

feeding

with lies to

him motivated. The factory

happened Richard Pierce had really died. Victoria Kane had really defended her company against acéusations. But James had twisted those facts into a narrative that painted Victoria as a

it had almost worked. Alexander had infiltrated Camille's

systematically attacked Victoria's company and reputation. James had

weakness and sentimentality had