The documents revealed direct wire payments to an accountant, a local journalist, and a city official who were all directly linked to the corporate scandal that ruined Manuel’s father.
“My father was framed,” Manuel murmured in disbelief, realizing Emmett had deliberately destroyed his family because the elder Nelson had uncovered the ongoing fraud.
Rosalie felt the floor beneath her feet give way, overwhelmed by the sudden revelation. “I was only seventeen years old back then, locked away in a room, and I knew nothing about what he was doing.”
Manuel hesitated for a second before responding, and that brief silence hurt her deeply.
“You are not responsible for his actions,” Manuel reassured her, reaching out to her. “Forgive me for staying silent, as my anger spoke before my reason could catch up.”
At the bottom of the folder, they discovered a secret draft marriage agreement containing a forged legal clause stating that if Rosalie died and Manuel was investigated, the entire fortune would revert straight to Emmett.
Along with the document were photographs of a dangerous sharp turn on the highway to Grand Rapids, accompanied by a typed note from the family lawyer, Wesley Turner, stating that an accident after the transfer would make the husband the primary suspect.
Rosalie suddenly grasped the full scope of her father’s master plan.
Emmett had deliberately chosen a financially ruined man so he could frame him as a greedy murderer in the public eye. She was supposed to die in a planned accident, Manuel would be sent to prison, and her father would legally reclaim every single penny he had stolen.
Suddenly, the loud blare of a fire alarm echoed through the hallways.
Thick gray smoke began to seep rapidly under the wooden office door.
Someone had deliberately set fire to the ground floor beneath the archive room.
Manuel grabbed the blue folder off the table, but Rosalie turned back to grab Lorelei’s coded notebook. Suddenly, a burning wooden beam crashed down right between them, the ceiling creaked ominously, and the glass windows shattered outward from the intense heat.
“Rosalie, get out of there right now!” Manuel shouted through the growing flames.
Through the dense smoke, Rosalie caught a brief glimpse of a dark shadow sliding the heavy iron bolt shut on the outside of the main door, trapping them inside as the ceiling support snapped and fell directly onto Manuel.
PART 3
“Manuel!” Rosalie screamed, stumbling blindly through the heavy black smoke toward him.
The heavy wooden beam had struck his left shoulder, pinning him firmly to the burning floorboards. He tried desperately to push the weight off himself, but the sharp pain caused him to collapse backward onto the floor.
For twelve long years, her father had conditioned her to believe she was weak, clumsy, burdensome, and useless. On this night, the physical strength she had developed was the only thing standing between them and death.
Rosalie braced both hands under the heavy burning beam, let out a raw scream, and managed to lift the wood high enough for Manuel to pull his arm free. She grabbed him securely around his waist, guiding his weight down a hidden service passageway that she remembered from her childhood visits to Pinecrest.
The exit at the end of the passage was swollen shut from the damp weather, so Rosalie threw her body against it repeatedly until the lock snapped.
They collapsed together onto the wet grass of the garden just as massive flames fully consumed the archive room above them.
Lorelei’s notebook was still safely tucked inside Rosalie’s heavy winter coat.
They took refuge in an abandoned stone chapel located at the edge of the property, where Rosalie tended to his dislocated shoulder while Manuel looked at her through the soot on his face.
“I initially agreed to marry you to save my ruined family,” Manuel confessed quietly as they rested against the stone wall. “I thought I could remain distant, manage the business, and honor our agreement, but I no longer care about saving a company or a reputation if it means putting you in danger.”
Rosalie watched his face intently in the dim light. “My father will come back to offer you everything you lost.”
“Then I will tell him no, just as I did before,” Manuel stated firmly.
“Why would you give up everything for me?” she asked softly.
Manuel looked straight into her eyes and answered without hesitation. “Because I find myself looking for your face the moment you walk into a room, because I deeply admire your intelligence and courage, and because tonight you saved my life when everyone assumed you were the fragile one who needed saving.”
He did not offer superficial compliments about her appearance to make her feel better about her mark, but rather told her he loved her for who she was.
Rosalie leaned in and kissed him first.
The following morning, local fire investigators declared the chapel fire to be an deliberate act of arson after finding chemical accelerants in the hallway. They also uncovered phone logs showing that the family lawyer, Wesley Turner, had called the property guard shortly before the man vanished.
Emmett publicly denied any involvement, but he quickly moved to execute his original plan.
He met with Manuel, offering to pay off every debt owed by Nelson Enterprises, clear his father’s name completely, and secure his sister’s university tuition, provided Manuel signed a statement claiming Rosalie was mentally unstable, had set the fire herself, and required immediate medical commitment.
Manuel rejected the corrupt contract in front of a notary and two independent legal counsel members.
Rosalie listened to the conversation from the adjacent hallway, realizing for the first time in her life that someone was turning down a vast fortune without demanding her total obedience in return.
However, they still needed concrete evidence to prove who had altered Lorelei’s medication on the night she died.
The final piece of evidence arrived through a woman named Evelyn Webb, who was Lorelei’s cousin who had spent four years living in hiding in Duluth after Emmett threatened her family.
Evelyn produced an original letter written by Lorelei shortly before her death.
In the letter, Lorelei explained that she had discovered the illegal trust fund withdrawals and that Manuel’s father had been trying to help her stop the fraud. She explicitly wrote that she feared her husband and that Dr. Callaway was systematically swapping her daily medications.
“If anything happens to me, know that it was never an accident,” the final line of the letter read.
The official court hearing to strip Emmett Durham of his control over the family trust took place in downtown Minneapolis. Judges, bank executives, journalists, and members of high society filled the room, expecting a quiet private proceeding, but Rosalie ensured the truth was made public.
She entered the courtroom wearing a tailored emerald green dress, her neck completely exposed and her hair styled back to show her birthmark clearly.
Emmett looked at her with a bitter smirk and spoke loudly enough for the front rows to hear. “Look at her parading around, as my daughter has always been desperate for public attention.”
Rosalie walked straight to the table and placed Lorelei’s coded ledger down firmly. “No, father, for years you simply needed everyone to look away so no one would see what you were doing.”
Emmett tried to discredit her using old medical records, insisting that Rosalie had suffered from severe paranoid episodes since her teenage years and that he was merely a protective father.
In response, Manuel presented detailed financial invoices showing that Dr. Callaway had received large cash bonuses every time he signed a forced isolation order. The medical diagnoses were copy-pasted word for word, including dates when Rosalie was not even present in the state.
Naomi took the stand to testify about the poisoned hot chocolate, supported by independent toxicology reports, while the missing guard confessed under police questioning that Wesley had bribed him to lock the archive door during the fire.
