📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 08
Stephen’s raised hand cast a shadow across Scarlett’s face. He demanded an apology to Danielle, threatening to beat her in front of Summer if she refused. Scarlett did not retreat. Fear had once kept her obedient, but motherhood had burned that fear away.
She declared that Danielle was not her sister. Danielle was the child Stephen had fathered with his mistress while Scarlett’s mother was still alive. If anyone in the room had no right to preach about shame and legitimacy, it was the family built from his betrayal. The truth struck harder than Scarlett’s slap.
Her stepmother gasped and turned to Stephen with practiced fragility. She urged him to be a man and defend his wife and daughter. The manipulation was obvious to Scarlett, but Stephen embraced it because it justified the violence he already wanted to commit. His authority had been challenged, and he intended to restore it with his hands.
Summer cried out when he seized Scarlett. She ran between them, pleading with her grandfather not to hurt her mommy. Her small hands pushed uselessly against his arm. The sight should have shamed any decent man into stopping.
Instead, Stephen tore the child away and shoved her aside. Summer struck the floor with a frightened gasp. Scarlett screamed her name and fought to reach her, but her father held her back. Within seconds, Summer’s breathing changed.
The familiar whistle of constricted air sliced through Scarlett’s panic. Summer had asthma, and terror could trigger a severe attack. Her chest worked desperately while each breath became shallower. Her frightened face was already losing color. Scarlett warned Stephen that her daughter needed help immediately.
Her stepmother looked at the struggling child without sympathy. If Summer died, she said, nature would merely be correcting its own mistake. The calmness of the remark chilled Scarlett more than open rage. These people did not see Summer as family or even as an innocent child.
Scarlett called her a monster. The accusation produced no shame, only annoyance. Stephen ordered the “little whelp” removed from the room and locked away. A household employee hesitated, then obeyed under his furious stare.
Summer reached for her mother as she was dragged toward a side room. Scarlett fought with all her strength, but Stephen and the others blocked her path. The child’s breathing grew harsher with every second. Her inhaler remained outside the room.
The door slammed and the lock turned. Summer pressed against the other side, calling for her mother in a thin, frightened voice. Scarlett pounded on the wood and begged her to breathe slowly. The advice was helpless without medicine, yet it was all she could give through the barrier.
She pleaded with Stephen to open the door. Whatever punishment he wanted to inflict on her, she would accept it if he let Summer out. Danielle touched her reddened cheek and watched Scarlett beg with visible satisfaction. Revenge mattered more to her than whether a child survived.
Summer slid down the door inside the darkened room. Each breath demanded more effort and brought less air. She remembered Connor holding her after the wedding and promising she could call whenever she missed him. Her fingers trembled toward the children’s watch on her wrist.
Outside, Scarlett continued striking the door until pain shot through her hands. She told Summer to stay awake and promised she would get to her. Stephen ordered her to stop making a spectacle of herself. To him, the child’s medical crisis was merely another tool for enforcing obedience.
Danielle suggested that Scarlett might learn respect if she heard Summer suffer long enough. Her mother approved with a small smile. Their cruelty was not impulsive; it was deliberate, designed to force Scarlett back toward Bennett Whitmore and surrender control of the company. Summer’s life had become leverage.
Scarlett turned on them with tears and fury burning together. She warned that if anything happened to her daughter, no wealth or family name would protect them. Stephen dismissed the threat. He still believed Scarlett stood alone.
Inside the room, Summer found the contact marked Daddy. The screen blurred as dizziness spread through her. She pressed the call icon but could not tell whether the connection succeeded. The watch felt heavy against a wrist that had lost its strength.
Far away, secure equipment continued processing the secret DNA sample. Connor had no idea that the child he was preparing to protect was already in mortal danger. Cypher monitored the test while investigators gathered records of the Hayes family’s abuse. Facts were assembling too slowly to help the girl trapped behind the locked door.
Scarlett begged her parents one final time. She promised anything, including submission, if they would release Summer and return the inhaler. Her stepmother looked away in boredom. Danielle wanted an apology first, and Stephen wanted proof that his eldest daughter could still be broken.
Summer’s knees gave way. The watch connected, carrying the faint sounds of her breathing into an encrypted network built for war. She could barely form a word, but she forced air past her closing throat. “Daddy…”
The signal traveled beyond the locked room as Scarlett’s pleas filled the corridor. Somewhere outside the Hayes estate, Connor’s private number began to ring. Summer pressed the watch to her lips and used what little breath remained to whisper the only thing that mattered: “Help me.” Then she waited for the father she had only just found to answer.
