The Abandoned Wife Dumped Him First (Victoria and Elias) novel Chapter 132

Hawk swallowed hard, and he coughed violently before he could recover. He gritted his teeth.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Steeling himself, he began cautiously, "It's about Miss Sanger…"

Elias's sharp brows furrowed slightly. "What did she say?"

"She… she asked me to remind you, Mr. Shawn, that the cooling-off period is almost over…" After returning to the capital, they could go to city hall to finalize the divorce.

However, before Hawk could finish the sentence, the pressure in the car dropped instantly. Though the windows were closed, an icy chill seemed to seep in, raising goosebumps on his skin and making him shiver involuntarily.

Hawk glanced at the rearview mirror and saw his boss's chiseled face turn dark and grim. The intimidating aura radiating from him was so terrifying it made it hard to breathe.

Hawk was cursing himself internally and wanted to slap himself twice. He regretted it. He shouldn't have said anything now. They were still a long way from the airport! How was he going to survive this?

***

Three days later, in the VIP lounge of Havenport Airport.

Sunny walked over to Victoria with two cups of coffee, setting one down beside her. "Finally, we can go home. For us workhorses who are always on the road, the only time we feel a bit pampered is when we get VIP service on a flight."

After nearly a month of high-intensity work, Victoria hadn't had much time to check her personal email. She opened her laptop to browse through her inbox while smiling at her friend. "And when we get our project bonuses."

Sunny sighed. "Alright, I guess that's another perk. But after this whole ordeal, I'd give up one percent of my bonus to never have to come to Havenport for work again! It's been torture. I've lost several pounds here."

Other colleagues overheard her complaints and joined in.

Victoria took a sip of her coffee, not participating in their conversation.

Her personal inbox had over a dozen unread emails, mostly spam. Of the remaining two, one was a confirmation from the Euro-American Architectural Design Awards acknowledging receipt of her preliminary design submission. The other was from the archives department at Imperial University.

The body of the email contained a simple greeting and an attachment.

The file was named: Senior Year Internship Registration Form for the 2016 Architecture and Design Program.

She immediately opened it, her eyes scanning down the list, searching for Genevieve's internship record.

There were only two outstanding graduates from the architecture program that year, and their files were at the very beginning. It didn't take long for Victoria to find Genevieve's name. At the same time, her eyes fell on the registered company for her senior year internship—

"I haven't been completely honest with you. The reason I wanted to check Genevieve's internship record wasn't just to figure out how she first got connected to my father—" Victoria took a deep breath, trying to stay as calm as possible. "I also suspect… that Genevieve had something to do with the accident two years ago."

When the accident at The Sanger Group happened two years ago, the final investigation concluded that the primary cause was cutting corners on building materials. Back then, Garnett had taken the blame without a moment's hesitation. Logically, there was no reason to doubt the conclusion.

But Victoria had never forgotten what Garnett told her when she was accepted into the architecture program at Imperial University.

He had said, 'Victoria, no matter what kind of designer you become in the future, never forget that architecture is not for art's sake, but for people. Any design built by sacrificing safety should never exist.'

How could a man who repeatedly emphasized this, who considered safety his bottom line, possibly cut corners on materials?

She had asked Garnett, but he never said anything.

She knew her father's silence stemmed from self-blame and guilt for not discovering what his subordinates had done, so he simply shouldered it all himself.

That's why Victoria eventually stopped dwelling on it.

Until the day in Grady's office when Abbey had unintentionally mentioned that interns had also participated in that project two years ago…