She Turned Her Grief Into Wings novel Chapter 121

Ever since that last dinner party, Caden Hayes had been working like a man possessed.

He practically lived in his office, only stepping out to grab a drink and clear his head with Solomon.

Lately, the very thought of returning to his villa repulsed him; just unlocking the front door and breathing the air inside made him feel suffocated.

Inside the top-floor office of Hayes Group.

"Mr. Hayes, we've got a solid lead on the hospital incident."

Caden was flipping through a stack of contracts when Aiken knocked and stepped inside.

He looked up, taking the file his assistant handed over.

"We had some guys sniffing around the rougher side of town for a while. We finally tracked down the man from the security footage. His name is Hank. With a little push and pull, we got him to give up the guy pulling his strings."

"Lucius?"

Aiken nodded. "Hank is a low-level thug who collects protection money in that area. Lucius is his boss, but he prefers to stay in the shadows, so very few people know about their connection."

"Hank confessed that he often handles personal errands for Lucius. We ran a voice comparison on the call made to the hospital, and it's a perfect match."

"So, this Lucius is connected to Helga?"

Aiken nodded again, flipping the file to the second page.

"We pulled all available surveillance from areas Lucius frequents and tracked down his residence."

"A month ago, Ms. Sutton was spotted there."

Caden stared at the printed screenshots. Blurry as they were, tracing the figure from arrival to departure left no doubt—it was absolutely Helga Sutton.

"There's also this."

Aiken presented several pages of international bank statements.

"Lucius has an encrypted private account. Every month, he receives an offshore wire transfer, though we can't directly trace the sender."

Germany.

Roughly thirty thousand dollars a month. And exactly fifteen days before Shera's father passed away, a massive lump sum of over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars had been wired into the account.

For a regular person, that was a staggering amount of money.

While those figures might not break the bank for the Sutton family, keeping up a steady cash flow like that for years didn't make sense.

Knowing Helga, she simply wasn't the type to financially support someone long-term out of the goodness of her heart.

The source of the money was a total mystery.

A long list of names. A string of disconnected events.

And all roads led back to the Sutton family.

Helga... Did she really have the nerve to plant a bug on him?

Or perhaps, her father was the architect behind all of this.

Maybe it was time to test the waters.

He unlocked his phone and shot a text to Helga.

[I'll be visiting the estate this weekend to see Zachary.]

Standing up, Caden walked over to the bookshelf and picked up a framed group photo of the four of them, his gaze heavy with unspoken thoughts.

—

Shera's foot was nearly fully healed. Lately, she had been so consumed with preparing for the finals that she barely had time to eat.

Just as she was about to clock out, she received a surprise message from Felipa, saying she had a free evening and inviting her over for dinner.

Having spent time with the master artisan before, the two of them had developed an easy, comfortable rapport.