Jocelyn's POV
We strategize from bed because Dr. Reeves would lose her mind if she saw me upright past eight PM.
Zayden's propped against the headboard with his laptop, reviewing the legal filing Landon submitted against Trevor.
I'm horizontal with pillows supporting my back, iPad balanced on my growing belly, mapping Aiden's probable next moves on a notes app that doesn't violate the parental controls because technically it's not email.
"If the gala is his target, he needs public credibility first," I say. "Right now he's just an angry half-brother who wrote a tabloid article. He needs legitimacy."
"Which is why he recruited Vivienne and Trevor." Zayden scrolls through documents. "Respected philanthropist plus former board member creates the credible narrative. He provides the orchestration. They provide the faces."
"But we filed against Trevor yesterday. That means…"
"Aiden knows we're closing in on the network." He closes the laptop. "Which means he either accelerates or he covers his tracks."
My phone rings, the one Zayden reluctantly returned this morning. Compromise: no news apps, no social media, no foundation email. Calls from approved contacts only.
This number isn't on the approved list. Unknown, New York area code. Something makes me answer.
"Hello?"
"Jocelyn Hartwell-Wolfe." The voice is clipped, controlled, unmistakable. "We need to talk."
Vivienne Vance. I put her on speaker, Zayden's expression hardens into stone.
"I'm here," I say carefully. "What do you want?"
"I want to know how long you've known Aiden was planning to frame me."
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"Don't play stupid, it doesn't suit you. I just spent three hours with my lawyer reviewing materials that appeared in my inbox this afternoon. Emails I never sent. Financial transactions I never authorized. Meeting notes with fabricated quotes attributed to me."
"Vivienne, we don't know what you're talking about," Zayden says.
"Of course you don't. Because Aiden's been positioning me as the mastermind of this entire operation."
Her voice is ice—the kind that forms when fury freezes over.
"Fabricated email chains from my account to Trevor, discussing plans to undermine your foundation. Payment records showing transfers from me to CelebGossip Daily. Minutes from a strategy session I supposedly hosted."
The implications crystallize. "He's building a case against you."
"He's making me the fall guy." The ice cracks slightly, showing something rawer underneath. "If he releases those fabricated records, I'm not a former girlfriend with legitimate grievances. I'm a criminal conspirator who weaponized abuse allegations for personal vendetta."
"Were you a willing participant?" I ask. Direct. No softening.
Silence. Then: "Initially. Yes."
Zayden's jaw tightens but he doesn't speak.
"Aiden contacted me eight weeks ago, said you were using my donation as redemption porn for your documentary. Profiting off my mistakes without giving me control over how my story was told." She takes a breath. "He suggested I raise public questions. Create doubt. Force you to include me in documentary decisions."
"So you agreed to help him destroy us."
"I agreed to advocate for myself. The destruction was his agenda—I just didn't see it until he'd already positioned me to take the blame for all of it."
"Why are you calling us?" I ask.
"Because my lawyer says these fabricated documents are professional enough to destroy my reputation permanently. I don't do well with being made a fool of, Jocelyn. And I absolutely do not do well with being used as someone else's disposable weapon."
"So you want to turn on him."
"I'm not calling to apologize." Her voice drops, becomes something harder and more precise. "I'm calling because Aiden Wolfe is planning to burn me along with you, and I'd rather burn him first."
The room is quiet except for the blood pressure monitor's faint hum. Zayden and I exchange a look—the kind of wordless communication built from years of crisis, the shorthand of two people who can calculate risk in the space between heartbeats.
"What do you know about his plans?" Zayden asks.
"Not as much as I should. He compartmentalizes everything—that's how he maintains deniability. But I know he's planning something for your gala. Something public, something designed for maximum humiliation."
"What kind of something?"
"He wouldn't tell me specifics, but he asked about your documentary filming schedule. Whether Rachel Brennan would have cameras at the gala, whether speeches would be live-streamed."
My stomach drops. "He wants it captured on camera."
"Maximum audience, maximum damage." Vivienne's voice is grim. "Whatever he's planning, it's designed to play well on film."
"What can you give us?" I ask. "Specifically."
"Trevor Marsh's encrypted phone number—the one he uses for communications he thinks are private. I pulled it from his phone during our last meeting." She pauses. "I've also forwarded every fabricated document to your lawyer. Landon Pierce, correct?"
"Correct."
"Good. He'll see that the metadata on those emails doesn't match my devices. The IP addresses trace to servers I've never accessed. Aiden built a convincing frame, but he built it fast—which means he built it sloppy."
"You stole information from your co-conspirator?" Zayden's voice carries a note of reluctant respect.
"I've been in enough bad business deals to know you always keep insurance. Trevor's careless, Aiden probably knows that by now. But that encrypted number might give your team access to communications Aiden thought were invisible."
"Why help us?" The question I need answered before I can trust any of this. "Why not just hire your own lawyers, fight your own battle, leave us out of it entirely?"
"Because alone, I'm a scorned woman making accusations against her ex's family. Easily dismissed, easily discredited."
Her voice is clinical, strategic.
"But aligned with you, with documented evidence of the same conspiracy targeting both of us, I'm a corroborating witness in a criminal case. My credibility goes up when it's attached to yours."
"Enemy of my enemy."
"Exactly. Don't mistake this for friendship. If there was a way to take Aiden down without handing you ammunition, I'd take it. But there isn't, so here we are."
"Here we are," I agree.
"I'm retracting my public statement tomorrow morning. Clarifying that I was given false information by sources I've now determined to be unreliable. It won't repair the damage completely, but it starts walking it back."
"That'll make you a target."
"I'm already a target. At least this way I choose when the bullet comes."
Zayden leans forward. "If you're turning against Aiden, you need protection. He's more dangerous than…"
"I'm aware of what he is. I've been working with him for two months." Her voice cuts sharp. "I'll handle my own security. You focus on your gala. I'll focus on making sure when this blows up, I'm not standing in the blast radius."
"And after?" I ask. "If we both survive this?"
"Then we go back to being civil strangers who share nothing but a complicated history."
A pause, and when she speaks again, the ice has thinned just enough to show something human beneath it.
"For what it's worth—and this is worth very little—I hope your baby is healthy. Pregnancy complications are hell, regardless of what I think of your marriage."
The line goes dead.
Zayden and I sit in the quiet of our bedroom, the phone dark between us, processing the seismic shift that just occurred.
"Zay?"
"Yeah?"
"Vivienne turning on Aiden means he's losing allies. The network is fracturing."
"Or it means he's desperate enough to burn everyone. Including himself." He settles beside me, hand finding my belly. "Either way—tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," I agree.
We fall asleep in the wreckage of shifting alliances—enemies becoming assets, weapons becoming witnesses, the careful architecture of Aiden's conspiracy developing cracks that might just be wide enough to bring the whole thing down.
Four days to the gala. Four days to turn a hostile alliance and a stolen phone number into something that ends this.
The baby kicks once more—strong, insistent—and I think: We're coming for you, Aiden. From a bed, on modified rest, with your own allies feeding us intelligence.
Not the offensive he expected. But maybe the one he deserves.