Gregory and his legal team retaliated quickly by filing an emergency motion to discredit my character using an old military complaint from eight years ago. Donald Sterling presented a file accusing me of misconduct during the court-martial of Owen Vance, while deliberately omitting the final pages that proved my complete exoneration. Nicole traced the document retrieval request to Bradley Stone, a disgraced colonel I had exposed for manipulating logs years ago, who was now working as a corporate advisor for Gregory. We realized Gregory had hired my former adversary to route the missing capital and set me up for federal indictment. Refusing to be intimidated, I contacted General Evelyn Vance, who provided a certified affidavit confirming my total exoneration. During the next hearing, I presented this evidence to Judge Winters while Owen Vance sat proudly in the gallery to support me. The judge furiously denied their motion and threatened Donald Sterling with disciplinary action for submitting misleading exhibits. That night, a terrified Wyatt arrived at my apartment to confess that federal authorities were investigating his father for defrauding everyday investors in 2018.
Wyatt admitted that his father had planned this trap from the beginning of our marriage, intending to use my military legal background and the old ethics complaint to make me the perfect federal target when the Blue Harbor project inevitably collapsed. I ordered Wyatt to confess everything to federal authorities, and then I contacted Lucas Ramirez, a former military colleague who was now an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. Lucas confirmed an active grand jury investigation into Gregory’s commercial entities, noting that all paper trails currently pointed to me. The following morning, Madeline secretly invited me to the New Canaan estate and handed over a private ledger containing thirty years of Gregory’s illegal transactions. She explained she was finally standing up to her husband because he planned to let Wyatt take the blame for the missing funds. She promised to testify about pressuring Hazel Higgins and verify every line in her detailed notebook to protect her son. Gregory and Bradley Stone arrived at the house moments later, arrogantly boasting that Paige would perjure herself in court and Hazel had retracted her confession, completely unaware of the evidence I now held.
