Sweet Love 2x: Miss Ruthless CEO for our Superstar Uncle-Chapter 199: Before Everything Collapsed

The Pemberton estate was already lit when they arrived.

Lights traced the edges of the stone walls, catching the places where winter hadn’t fully let go. The cold had eased compared to the previous weeks, but it was still there—pressing in as the car came to a stop.

A staff member opened the door before they reached it.

Inside, it was warm.

Arianne stepped in first. Franz followed behind her. Coats were taken. They were guided toward the dining room where the others were already waiting.

Sam sat near the center of the table, Audrey beside her. Nate stood at the far end, one hand resting on the back of his chair. Julian was seated, angled slightly, his attention lifting as they entered. Gilbert remained where he was, posture unchanged.

"You’re late," Nate said.

"We’re not," Franz replied.

That was enough.

They took their seats.

Dinner moved without anyone steering it. Sam carried most of the conversation, pulling Audrey into it easily. No one talked about anything that mattered. Work came up but didn’t stay. It was familiar—everyone avoiding the real things without making it obvious.

Arianne spoke when she was spoken to. Franz stayed present without pushing. Julian said what needed saying. Nate filled the gaps. Gilbert said almost nothing.

Nothing in the room said what was coming.

By the time the last plate was cleared, Sam set her glass down and stood.

"Audrey."

Audrey looked up. "Now?"

"I haven’t seen you properly in weeks," Sam said.

Audrey glanced toward Gilbert, then back.

"They’ll start talking business," Sam added. "You don’t want to sit through that."

Audrey exhaled. "You say that every time."

"And I’m always right."

A pause. Then Audrey stood.

"Don’t stay too long," she said.

"We won’t," Gilbert replied.

Sam had already turned, guiding her toward the hallway. The door closed.

The room shifted. Not slow. Just—everything changed.

Nate leaned back, exhaling once.

Gilbert stood. "Study."

No one asked why.

They left the dining area. The hallway narrowed. The lights dimmed. The space went from open to closed.

Gilbert opened the study door.

Inside, a table sat at the center. Files were spread across it—arranged, labeled, lined up. A tablet rested to one side, screen on but dim. Nothing looked new. This had been sitting here, waiting.

Franz stepped in first, stopping at the edge of the table. Arianne moved beside him. Nate and Julian took positions across. Gilbert stood at the head.

No one sat.

"This started two years before everything fell apart," Gilbert said.

He opened the first file.

"Dominic made a bet. A big one. Eighty million against a forty million margin. No safety net."

Julian frowned. "That’s not a bet. That’s throwing money away."

"It was," Gilbert said. "And he lost."

Nate leaned in. "How much?"

"Sixty-two million. In eleven weeks."

Nate let out a short breath.

"The fund didn’t report it," Gilbert continued. "Because he’d already moved the loss somewhere else before it crashed."

"Through where?" Franz asked.

Gilbert turned the page. "A shell company in Veltara. Then split across three holding companies. The addresses trace back to a mail drop. The money goes in pieces, moves through secondary accounts, and comes back together six months later in a different setup. Clean on the surface. Nothing connects back to Blackwood unless you already know what you’re looking for."

Julian leaned forward. "Comes back where?"

Gilbert didn’t answer right away. He moved to the next section.

"That’s what Alex was trying to find when he died."

The name landed in the room.

Julian’s hand stopped mid-reach for a document. He didn’t pull it back. He just held there for a second. Then he picked it up anyway, read it, set it down.

"He was careful," Julian said. Not to anyone. Just out loud. "He was always careful."

No one corrected him. Because he was. Alex had been the careful one—the one who checked twice before he moved once, who never went into anything without knowing the way out. They had all watched him operate like that for years.

And he had run out of time anyway.

Franz’s hand pressed flat against the table.

"He saw the shell," Franz said.

"He traced it to Veltara," Gilbert confirmed. "But not further. The records were sealed."

"Sealed by who?"

"That’s the gap."

Julian straightened. "This could be legal. Aggressive, maybe. But not criminal."

Nate looked at him. "Sixty-two million moved through a shell in Veltara."

"People do worse and stay inside the law."

"Not when they’re also sitting inside Blackwood’s leadership," Nate said. "And not when the reporting was changed before the loss was even confirmed."

Julian’s jaw tightened. "You’re assuming the change was intentional."

"Then explain the timing."

They both looked at Gilbert.

Gilbert picked up the next page and set it in front of them. A timeline. The date the report was changed. The date the loss was confirmed.

Four days apart.

Julian looked at it for a moment. "Intentional," he said. Not a question anymore.

Gilbert set the page back down.

Arianne hadn’t moved. Her eyes were on the timeline—not the numbers, not the names. The dates.

"The bet opened in March," she said.

No one interrupted.

"The loss was recorded in April."

She turned the page.

"The move through the shell started in May."

She looked up at Gilbert.

"That’s not fixing a loss. That’s hiding it. He didn’t lose the money. He made it look like a loss so no one would follow where it actually went."

The room held that.

Gilbert looked at her. "That’s what Alex thought. He couldn’t prove it."

Gilbert placed another file forward.

"This is where Summers comes in."

Not labeled directly. But there in the movement. Contracts. Timelines. Small problems in quarterly filings—nothing large enough to stand alone. But the pattern was consistent across eighteen months. The same setups. The same contract terms. The same narrow window between start and finish.

Arianne’s eyes moved down the page. Not the totals. What was underneath.

"He didn’t pull directly," she said.

Nate looked at her. "From Summers?"

"No." She turned to the next section. "He spread it out. Used the edges. Contracts that wouldn’t trigger review. Nothing large enough to flag on its own. But enough over time that it added up—"

She stopped.

Nate finished it. "He used what sits around Summers to absorb what he couldn’t put through Blackwood."

"Yes," Arianne said.

Julian looked between them. "And no one saw it because each piece was too small."

"There was nothing to see yet," Arianne said. No hesitation. No defense. Just fact.

Gilbert placed the last set of documents.

"This is where Alex focused."

Franz hadn’t sat. He was at the edge of the table, one hand flat against a document he hadn’t looked away from.

"He saw the shape of it," Franz said. Not a question.

"Yes," Gilbert said.

"He traced it back to the shell and couldn’t get past it."

"Correct."

"Because the structure was designed to break if you pulled on it."

Franz looked up at Gilbert. Not at the documents. At him.

"Alex knew it would break if he pulled," Franz said. "That’s why he didn’t. He was building from the outside. Enough to put it back together without touching it directly."

Gilbert’s face didn’t change. "Yes."

"And he ran out of time."

The word sat there. No one moved to fill it.

Nate had been holding the table edge through the last exchange. His jaw was tight in a way that had nothing to do with the numbers.

"He didn’t say anything to me either," he said.

Franz looked at him.

"He knew I would have gone after it." Nate’s voice was even. Too even. "He knew I would have pulled the thread before it was ready."

A pause.

"He was protecting me."

Julian looked up from the documents. "Or all of us."

No one argued with that.

Franz looked back at the documents. All of it spread out.

"Then we don’t pull the thread," he said. "We find the knot."

Arianne turned back to the timeline. Her fingers pressed against the edge of the page—not moving it, just there.

"Alex saw this. He saw the shape of it and kept it to himself."

She looked up at Gilbert.

"He didn’t want us in it."

Gilbert met her gaze. "He wanted it closed before anyone else had to carry it."

Nate looked at the documents again. "He was always like that." His voice had gone rough. "Even when we were younger. He’d take the hit before any of us had to."

Julian’s gaze dropped. Then lifted. "And now we’re all carrying it anyway."

No one answered that. There was nothing to answer.

Arianne had turned back to the timeline.

"This started before Summers collapsed," she said.

"Before you disappeared," Gilbert confirmed.

"Before the annulment." She looked at the sequence of dates. "This wasn’t a reaction. He wasn’t scrambling after a loss. The shell was already in place before the bet even opened."

Nate absorbed that. "So the loss was cover."

"The loss was the beginning," Arianne said.

She turned two pages back. Found the date the shell company was registered.

"The shell was set up eight months before the bet," she said. "He wasn’t building this because of a bad trade. He had the structure ready and he needed a reason to use it. Something that would create a loss large enough to move money without it looking like theft."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Julian looked between her and the documents. "He was building something. He just needed a reason to use it."

Arianne’s eyes stayed on the page. "And Summers gave him one."

Gilbert closed one of the files partway, leaving the rest open.

"This is as far as Alex got," he said. "The rest is ours to find."

No one moved to sit. No one stepped back from the table.

The documents remained spread across the table. Names. Dates. Numbers that didn’t lie on their own but had been arranged so that the truth would cost something to reach.

Not complete. But no longer separate.

Whatever this was—it had been built long before any of them had seen it.

And someone had made sure it would cost them to follow.