Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 44
Scarlett asked Connor what Vale intended to reveal. He did not offer reassurance or another partial truth. Instead, he took her to Dominion’s first warehouse, abandoned since the company became an empire.
The building still held scorched prototypes and faded tactical maps. Connor had been twenty-two when Vale recruited him from military intelligence. He believed precision weapons could end wars faster and save lives.
Vale taught him to calculate acceptable losses. Connor approved missions in which civilians remained inside projected danger zones because delay threatened larger populations. Some survived, and some did not.
The deaths were legal under secret authorizations, but legality did not make them clean. Connor had carried every name while allowing the world to call him powerful. Vale called guilt an obstacle to leadership.
The difference between them emerged slowly. Connor began aborting operations when intelligence was uncertain. Vale altered the algorithms so machines could continue decisions that human commanders refused to make.
Evelyn’s anonymous evidence revealed those tests. Connor copied the records and threatened to expose Vale before the board. His recorded words about ending the work came from that confrontation.
Hours later, the laboratory exploded. Connor believed his mentor and several researchers died because he had failed to evacuate them. He rebuilt Dominion partly to prevent their work from spreading.
Scarlett asked why he had never told her. Connor said he feared she would see the Merchant of Death as more than an enemy’s title. Part of the reputation came from choices he had willingly made.
She was angry, not because his past existed, but because he had again decided what truth she could bear. Their three conditions after his identity reveal had forbidden exactly this kind of protection.
Connor did not defend himself. He admitted that secrecy remained his oldest reflex. Loving her had changed his decisions faster than it changed his fear.
Scarlett stepped away but did not leave. She told him trust could survive an ugly truth more easily than another beautiful lie. He would release the complete mission history, including evidence that could destroy Dominion.
Connor agreed. Cypher warned that governments might prosecute him and victims might sue. Connor answered that reform without accountability was only a new name on the same empire.
Richard arrived after learning where they were. He knew about the early missions because Reed money had financed several prototypes. His silence had protected both Connor and the family fortune.
Connor accused him of teaching Vale that consequences could be purchased. Richard admitted he had valued his son’s future more than strangers’ right to know. The decision had preserved Connor’s power and deepened his isolation.
Scarlett insisted both men stop converting guilt into control. They could not repair the past by deciding the future alone. Truth had to belong to those harmed by it.
Cypher assembled the surviving mission records. Connor recorded a statement accepting responsibility for every authorization bearing his name. He separated verified facts from Vale’s later manipulation.
Before publication, Vale called. He praised Connor for finally becoming honest and predicted that honesty would remove him from Dominion more effectively than any coup. Connor thanked him for the lesson.
Vale’s confidence faltered when Connor announced that all patents derived from the illegal program would also become public. Vanguard’s competitive advantage would vanish with Dominion’s secrets. The confession was also an attack.
Scarlett took Connor’s hand before he transmitted the archive. She could not promise the world would forgive him. She promised he would face its judgment as her husband and Summer’s father.
The records went live. Within seconds, Dominion’s value collapsed, prosecutors requested interviews, and former employees began calling. Among them was a woman who claimed she knew why Evelyn had created the star-shaped protocol.
