SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Camille sat in the hospital cafeteria, staring at a cup of coffee that had gone cold hours ago. She hadn't left the hospital since Victoria's collapse two days earlier. The doctors said Victoria's condition was stable but critical. The sedation would continue for at least another day while her body fought to recover from the stress- induced complications.

The cafeteria smelled like disinfectant and overcooked vegetables. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in harsh white light that made everyone look sick. Camille felt sick too, but not from the lighting. She felt sick from the weight of everything falling apart around her.

Kane Industries was bleeding money. Stock prices had dropped another fifteen percent since Victoria's hospitalization. Major investors were pulling out, citing concerns about leadership stability. The board was demanding emergency meetings that Camille wasn't prepared to handle alone.

And Alexander kept calling.

She'd blocked his number after the fifth call, but he found ways around it. Messages through his assistant. Emails to her work account. Even a handwritten letter delivered to the hospital. All saying the same thing: he was sorry, he wanted to explain, he needed her to understand.

Camille didn't want to understand. Understanding would mean acknowledging that part of her still loved him. That part of her wanted to believe his feelings had been real, even if everything else was a lie.

"Camille?"

She looked up to see Stefan Rodriguez standing beside her table. He looked tired, older than his years, wearing a simple black sweater instead of his usual expensive suits. His left shoulder was still stiff from the bullet he'd taken saving her from Rose.

"Stefan? What are you doing here?"

"I came to see how Victoria is doing. And to see how you're holding up."

Camille laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. "I'm not holding up. I'm drowning."

Stefan sat down across from her without being invited. "I know the feeling." They sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment. Stefan was the last person Camille had expected to see. Their relationship had been complicated since he'd saved her life. She'd forgiven him for the affair with Rose, but forgiveness didn't erase history. It didn't make their conversations easy.

"I heard about you and Alexander," Stefan said quietly.

"Did you?" Camille's voice was bitter. "What exactly did you hear?"

"That he's been investigating Victoria. That he believes she's responsible for his uncle's death." Stefan paused. "That your marriage is over."

Camille's throat tightened. Hearing the words out loud made them more real. "It was never a real marriage to begin with."

"That's not true."

"How would you know?"

Stefan met her eyes. "Because I know what it looks like when someone loves you genuinely, and I know what it looks like when someone is using you. I did both to you."

The honesty in his voice caught Camille off guard. "Stefan—"

"Alexander loved you first. Before he knew about Victoria, before anyone told him about his uncle. I saw it at your engagement party. The way he looked at you wasn't calculated. It was real."

"It doesn't matter now."

"Doesn't it? If someone manipulated him into believing Victoria was guilty, if someone used his grief to turn him against you, doesn't that change things?"

Camille stared at her cold coffee. "He still chose revenge over our marriage. He still lied to me for months. He still used our wedding as cover for surveillance."

"Yes, he did. And that was wrong. But the question is whether he was acting on real evidence or manufactured lies."

"Why do you care?"

Stefan was quiet for a long moment. "Because I know what it's like to lose you because of my own mistakes. And because I owe you something."

"You don't owe me anything. You saved my life. We're even."

"No, we're not." Stefan leaned forward. "You gave me a second chance when you had every right to hate me forever. You let me help with the Phoenix Foundation. You let me prove I could be better than the man who betrayed you."

Camille looked at him, seeing the genuine regret in his eyes. The same regret that had driven him to take a bullet meant for her.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying let me help you investigate Alexander's claims about Victoria. Let me help you find out if someone has been manipulating all of you."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because if Victoria is innocent, she deserves to have her name cleared. And if Alexander was manipulated, you deserve to know the truth about what destroyed your marriage."

Camille felt tears starting again. "I can't handle any more betrayals, Stefan. I can't discover that someone else I trusted was lying to me."

"Then let's find out if Victoria was telling the truth or if Alexander was. Let's get real answers instead of living with suspicion and pain."

"I don't know how to investigate something like this. I don't know where to start."

"I do." Stefan pulled out his phone and showed her a folder of documents. "I've been looking into Alexander's uncle already. Victoria asked me to investigate Alexander's background before all this happened."

Camille stared at the phone. "Victoria suspected Alexander?"

"She suspected someone was feeding Kane Industries information to outside attackers. She wanted to know if Alexander might be involved." Stefan's expression was grim. "She was right to be suspicious."

"Show me."

Stefan opened the folder on his phone. "These are the official court records from the Meridian Technologies case. The real ones, not edited versions."

Camille read through the documents, her heart sinking with each page. The safety violations were clear. The worker complaints that Richard Pierce had ignored. The shortcuts his company had taken to underbid competitors.

"This doesn't match what Alexander showed me," she whispered.

"What did Alexander show you?"

"Richard Pierce's journal. It painted Victoria as the villain. Said she planted evidence and bribed inspectors."

Stefan nodded grimly. "I'd like to see that journal. And any other evidence Alexander has."

"He won't talk to me. And even if he would, I don't want to see him."

"Then we'll have to find another way."

The cafeteria door opened, and Hannah Zhao walked in. Kane Industries' chief engineer looked exhausted, her usually perfect appearance rumpled from days of crisis management.

"Camille? I've been looking for you." Hannah sat down beside them. "How's Victoria?"

"The same. Sedated. Fighting." Camille gestured to Stefan. "Hannah, this is Stefan Rodriguez. Stefan, Hannah Zhao."

Hannah's eyes widened slightly. "The Stefan Rodriguez? From the Rodriguez Shipping crisis?"

Stefan winced. "That's me. Though I'd prefer to be known for something else these days."

"Stefan wants to help investigate the allegations against Victoria," Camille explained. "He thinks someone might have manipulated the evidence Alexander was given."

Hannah leaned forward, interested. "What kind of evidence?"

"Documents suggesting Victoria covered up safety violations and destroyed Richard Pierce's company to hide her crimes," Stefan said.

"That's impossible," Hannah said immediately. "I've worked with Victoria for five years. She's obsessive about safety protocols. She'd rather lose money than risk lives."

"That's what I thought too," Camille said. "But the documents Alexander has seem real. His uncle's journal entries, official-looking reports..."

Hannah's expression sharpened. "Can I see them?"

"Alexander won't share them with me."

"Then we'll have to get them another way." Hannah pulled out her laptop. "I can analyze digital documents for signs of manipulation. Altered timestamps, inconsistent formatting, metadata that doesn't match the supposed creation dates."

Stefan and Camille exchanged glances. "You can do that?"

"I can do more than that. If someone created fake evidence to frame Victoria, they

left digital fingerprints. Modern document editing leaves traces that are almost impossible to hide completely."

"But we still need access to Alexander's evidence," Stefan pointed out.

Hannah smiled for the first time in days. "Leave that to me. Alexander's been sharing files with Kane Industries systems for months as part of the Phoenix Grid project. His computer has been on our network.

If the documents are on hi

system..."

"You can access them remotely?"

"I can access them legally. He signed agreements allowing Kane Industries IT support for collaborative projects. Those agreements include remote access for technical assistance."

Camille felt a spark of hope for the first time since finding the surveillance photos. "How long would it take?"

"A few hours to access his system. Maybe a day to analyze everything I find." Hannah's fingers were already flying over her keyboard. "But

do

Camille, you need to know - ifve). no

this, there's no going back. Whatever we find, whether it proves Victoria's innocence or guilt, you'll have to live with the truth."

Camille thought about Victoria lying unconscious in the hospital room upstairs. About Alexander's desperate phone calls and letters. About her marriage that had crumbled in a single conversation.

"I need to know the truth," she said finally. "Whatever it costs me."

Stefan nodded. "Then let's find it."

Hannah's laptop chimed as she connected to Kane Industries' servers. "I'm in

Alexander's system. There are hundreds of files here. Documents, photos, audio recordings..."

"Audio recordings?" Camille's stomach dropped.

"Phone calls. Conversations. Some are labeled with dates going back months." Hannah's face went pale as she read the file names. "Camille, some of these are recordings of your private conversations with Alexander."

The cafeteria suddenly felt too small, too bright, too full of the smell of disinfectant

and despair. Camille gripped the edge of the table.

"He recorded me?"

"It looks like he recorded everything. Every conversation, every argument, every intimate moment." Hannah's voice was horrified. "This goes way beyond gathering evidence about Victoria. This is surveillance of you personally." Stefan's jaw tightened. "What else is there?"

Hannah scrolled through the files. "Financial records for Kane Industries. Security footage from the corporate offices. Internal memos about board meetings. And..." She paused, her face going white.

"What?"

"A folder labeled 'Phase Five - Final Strike.' It's password protected, but the metadata shows it was created yesterday. After Victoria's collapse." Camille felt the room spinning around her. "He's still planning something. Even after everything that's happened, he's still planning to attack Victoria." "Not just Victoria," Hannah said quietly, reading the file structure. "There are

subfolders for Kane Industries, for you personally, and for something called 'Public Exposure Event.""

"He's going to destroy all of us," Camille whispered.

Stefan reached across the table and took her hand. "Not if we stop him first."

Hannah looked up from her laptop, determination replacing the shock in her eyes. "I can break the password protection. I can find out exactly what Alexander is planning. But we need to do this fast, before he realizes we're in his system."

Camille stared at the laptop screen, seeing years of marriage reduced to folders

of surveillance and betrayal. Every private moment catalogued. Every vulnerable conversation recorded. Every trust violated.

"Do it," she said. "Find out what else my husband has been hiding from me."

As Hannah's fingers flew over the keyboard, Camille realized this was just the beginning. Whatever they found in Alexander's files would either Clear Victoria's name or confirm her guilt. It would eithernoveldrama

expose a conspiracy against their family or reveal truths that would destroy them all.