Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 12
Summer’s accusation transformed Connor’s fury into something colder. He held her closer while the medical team worked around them, careful not to let his anger frighten her. Scarlett heard every word and turned toward the mansion in disbelief. She had known her family was cruel, but deliberate murder belonged to a darkness she had not been willing to imagine.
Danielle rushed onto the steps and shouted that the child was confused from lack of oxygen. Her mother claimed a careless servant must have misplaced the inhaler. Stephen dismissed Summer’s statement as the invention of a frightened four-year-old. Their explanations arrived too quickly and contradicted one another before the vehicle had even left.
Connor handed Summer to the physician for one moment and faced Cypher. The estate was to be sealed until every recording and witness statement had been secured. No one would delete a message, alter a camera, or purchase a servant’s silence. Cypher acknowledged the command with the crisp obedience of a soldier.
Stephen laughed at the display and told Connor he had no authority to imprison the Hayes family. Then he tried to call the police, only to find his phone without a signal. The mansion’s internet failed at the same moment, followed by the security gates locking under Dominion control. For the first time, Stephen understood that the strangers around his home were not hired muscle from a repair garage.
Scarlett touched Connor’s arm and reminded him that Summer needed a hospital. Her plea reached the part of him still capable of restraint. He climbed into the mobile unit beside his family, leaving Cypher to preserve the evidence. The doors closed on Stephen’s threats.
The physician monitored Summer’s oxygen while an inhaled medication opened her airways. Connor sat close enough that their knees touched and kept her hand inside his. Each improvement on the monitor loosened the pressure in his chest by a fraction. He had built weapons capable of changing wars, yet he would have traded every invention for the power to breathe in his daughter’s place.
Scarlett watched them from the opposite bench until the strain became too much. Her face drained of color, and she swayed when the vehicle turned. Connor caught her before she struck the wall. Only then did he see blood beneath the back of her blouse.
She insisted the injuries were unimportant compared with Summer. Connor refused to accept the comparison. One was his daughter, the other his wife, and neither would be sacrificed for the other again. He supported Scarlett with one arm while keeping hold of Summer with the other.
The position left him literally carrying the family he had spent his life avoiding. Connor remembered declaring that he wanted no wife and no children only hours before they found him. The old certainty now felt like the confession of a man too frightened to know what he wanted. He would never speak those words again.
At the hospital, a private emergency team took Summer directly for examination. Connor tried to follow until the doctor assured him the treatment room was full. The closed doors brought back every second of the broken phone call. Scarlett leaned against him, and they waited together beneath the merciless fluorescent lights.
Summer eventually stabilized, but the physician’s report offered little comfort. Her oxygen level had fallen dangerously low, and another few minutes without treatment could have caused brain injury or death. She would remain under observation until the doctors were certain no complications had developed. Connor received the news without moving, though his hand tightened around the report.
The doctor also insisted on examining Scarlett. Bruises crossed her shoulders and back, with several cuts where the punishment had broken skin. None were life-threatening, but their pattern made the cause unmistakable. Connor stood beside the examination bed and listened as each injury was documented for the authorities.
Scarlett admitted that she had offered herself for ten strikes in exchange for Summer’s freedom. Stephen agreed, then kept the door locked. Shame entered her voice as though trusting her father had been the greater crime. Connor told her the shame belonged solely to the people who exploited a mother’s love.
He promised no one would ever hurt either of them again. Scarlett wanted to believe him, yet the armed convoy, the sealed estate, and the deference of his men filled her with questions. She asked why a truck driver possessed a private medical unit and a force capable of taking over a mansion. Connor said the truth was complicated but not intended to harm her.
Before she could press him, Cypher arrived with a secured tablet. The estate’s primary cameras had been partially erased, exactly as Connor expected. Dominion technicians recovered the missing footage from an automatic remote cache. The video captured Stephen’s assault, Summer’s confinement, and every refusal to provide her inhaler.
Scarlett watched her own desperation from the detached angle of a security camera. Danielle smiled while she begged, and her stepmother calmly suggested that Summer’s death would correct nature’s mistake. Stephen ordered the child kept inside even after Scarlett submitted to his punishment. No misunderstanding could explain what the recording showed.
Connor ordered duplicate copies sent to secure locations and prepared for legal action. He would not let the Hayes family bury the truth beneath money or influence. Cypher hesitated before revealing that there was more footage to review. A secondary camera covered the corridor outside Summer’s room.
The recovered video showed a brief moment Scarlett had never seen. While Stephen restrained her, Danielle slipped through the doorway carrying something in her hand. She remained inside only seconds, then emerged and hid the object in her purse. The image sharpened as Cypher enlarged it.
It was Summer’s blue rescue inhaler. Danielle had not merely refused to search for the medicine; she had entered the room, taken it from within the child’s reach, and concealed it. Scarlett covered her mouth as the last excuse for her sister disappeared. Connor’s face became unreadable.
Cypher froze the frame on Danielle’s satisfied expression. The evidence proved planning, intent, and a willingness to watch Summer die. Connor looked through the glass at his sleeping daughter, then back at the woman holding her stolen inhaler on-screen. “Bring me everything on Danielle Hayes,” he ordered. “This time, no one protects her.”
