Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 14
Scarlett dressed for battle beneath the hospital’s unforgiving lights. Every movement pulled at the injuries across her back, but she refused the pain medication that might cloud her judgment. Hayes Group was more than a balance sheet; it carried her mother’s work and the inheritance meant for Summer. Stephen would not take it while Scarlett still had breath to fight.
Connor entered wearing the same plain clothes that had convinced everyone he was poor. He asked her once more to remain with Summer and let him handle the meeting. Scarlett shook her head. If she surrendered her voice now, her father would spend the rest of her life claiming she had never deserved one.
They agreed that Summer would stay under medical observation with trusted physicians. Two Dominion operatives guarded the corridor in ordinary suits, concealing their purpose from the child. Connor crouched beside her bed and promised both parents would return soon. Summer made him promise to protect her mother, then held out her pinkie until he sealed the vow.
The Hayes headquarters greeted Scarlett with whispers. Employees had already heard Stephen’s version of the hospital incident, and rumors followed her across the marble lobby. Connor walked at her side without reacting to the contempt aimed at his worn jacket. His calm made Scarlett wonder again what kind of man could ignore humiliation so completely.
Inside the boardroom, Stephen occupied the chairman’s seat. Danielle and her mother sat nearby, presenting themselves as injured victims, while directors studied Scarlett with unease. Bennett Whitmore stood beside the windows in a tailored suit, confident that wealth had made him the most important man present. His smile widened when Scarlett entered.
Stephen began with a rehearsed account of financial collapse. He blamed Scarlett’s refusal to cooperate with investors and described her departure from the estate as abandonment of duty. Not once did he mention locking Summer in a room or striking his daughter. His lies reduced attempted murder to a family disagreement.
Scarlett placed copies of the hospital report and preserved camera evidence on the table. Stephen immediately challenged their authenticity, while Danielle accused Connor of fabricating everything through criminal associates. Several directors refused to view the recordings, insisting the meeting concerned corporate survival rather than private misconduct. Money made cowardice easy to disguise as professionalism.
Bennett stepped forward as if offering peace. Whitmore Capital would provide enough immediate funding to stabilize Hayes Group, protect its employees, and halt the creditors circling its assets. Relief moved through the boardroom. Then he revealed the price.
Scarlett would annul her marriage to Connor and honor the union Stephen had arranged with the Whitmore family. Bennett called it a symbolic guarantee of cooperation, pretending possession was partnership. He promised Summer could be placed somewhere comfortable, provided the child did not interfere with their public life. Scarlett’s disgust sharpened with every word.
She refused before Stephen finished urging her to consider it. Connor was her legal husband and Summer’s biological father. Neither would be discarded for an investment designed to hand Bennett control of her mother’s company. Bennett’s pleasant expression cracked at the public rejection.
He looked Connor over and asked what future a bankrupt truck driver could offer. A man who lived beside highways could not rescue Hayes Group, protect Scarlett’s inheritance, or enter the society where she belonged. Several directors laughed softly, eager to please the person carrying the promised check. Connor remained silent until Bennett ordered him to leave the table.
“I can resolve the company’s immediate debt within twenty-four hours,” Connor said. The laughter stopped, then returned more loudly. Stephen asked whether he planned to sell his broken truck. Danielle suggested he might collect enough money if he begged at every highway stop in the state.
Connor did not defend himself. He requested a twenty-four-hour suspension of the removal vote, promising verifiable funds before the deadline. If he failed, the board could proceed without further delay. His certainty unsettled Bennett more than an obvious bluff would have.
Stephen proposed an additional condition. If Connor failed to deliver, he would end the marriage and disappear from Scarlett and Summer’s lives forever. The demand exposed the personal cruelty beneath the corporate proceeding. Scarlett rejected it immediately, refusing to let her family gamble with her daughter’s father.
Connor accepted before she could stop him. He told Scarlett quietly that he had already lost four years and would never risk losing another day. The wager was not dangerous because failure was not possible. She searched his face for arrogance but found only absolute confidence.
The board granted the delay by a narrow vote. Bennett leaned close to Connor on the way out and warned him that twenty-four hours would not transform poverty into power. Connor replied that Bennett was right. It would only reveal which of them had misunderstood the power already in the room.
In the private elevator, Scarlett demanded an explanation. Connor could not produce hundreds of millions through the salary of a driver, and she would not let him vanish into some illegal scheme. He promised the money would be clean and every document legitimate. When she asked whether he was secretly wealthy, he answered that wealth was the least complicated part of his truth.
Cypher waited in the underground garage with a financial dossier. Public reports understated the crisis: Hayes Group carried layers of hidden debt routed through shell companies. Large transfers had moved from company accounts into entities connected to Stephen and Scarlett’s stepfamily. The corporation had not merely failed; it had been systematically drained.
Worse, Whitmore Capital appeared throughout the transactions. Bennett’s family had purchased portions of the debt through intermediaries while pretending to negotiate a rescue. Their investment would allow them to seize the most valuable assets and use marriage to secure Scarlett’s inherited shares. The proposal in the boardroom had been a carefully prepared takeover.
Scarlett stared at her father’s signature on the transfers, grief giving way to fury. Connor ordered Cypher to acquire every legitimate claim before Whitmore could complete the trap. Cypher hesitated, then warned that the total exposure was enormous even for a major corporation. Connor closed the file and gave the command anyway: by morning, Dominion Tech would own the debt—and Stephen Hayes would learn exactly whom he had challenged.
