The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 222

Chapter 222 While The World Fell Apart

+5 Pearls

The world outside the hospital room did not stop turning. While Elera sat in the artificial twilight of machines and monitors, holding a hand that grew no warmer, the sun rose and set on a city buzzing with a different kind of fever. The news broke, and it broke big. It wasn’t just a ripple; it was a tsunami of scandal, the type that washes away reputations and leaves behind only the ugly, wet truth.

Inside the room, time was measured in drips and beeps. Outside, it was measured in headlines.

DAY ONE: THE EARTHQUAKE

Elera only learned about it because Clara, who had become the reluctant gatekeeper of all things external, was muttering over her phone in the corner, making strangled noises like a cat trying to cough up a hairball.

“What?” Elera asked, her voice flat. She hadn’t slept. She hadn’t moved except to use the bathroom, a grim, silent procession where Frost would escort her and stand outside the door. She existed in a state of suspended animation, all her senses tuned to the subtle, terrifying language of the medical monitors.

“It’s just… the news.” Clara turned the phone screen toward her. The headline was in brutal, black letters:

NETHS DYNASTY CRUMBLES: TITAN OF INDUSTRY CHARGED WITH MURDER, KIDNAPPING, FRAUD

Below it was a photo of Kieran from better days–smug, powerful, at a charity gala–juxtaposed with a grainy, unflattering mugshot from his arrest. He looked old, mean, and small. The caption read: Kieran Nethys, 62, escorted by FBI agents.

Elera stared at it. The man who had been a giant in her life, whose shadow had shaped her entire world,. was now a pixelated, pathetic figure on a screen. There was no satisfaction in it. Only a vast, weary emptiness. “Okay,” she said, and turned back to watch Drakonius’s chest rise and fall with the ventilator.

Clara, however, was diving down the rabbit hole. “Oh, wow. They’ve got… they’ve connected it all, El. The Lyros car accident. The death of that detective, Andrew Webb. The embezzlement from your grandmother’s trust. The attempted hostile takeover of Nethys Medical. It’s all here. It’s like someone fed the entire story to a journalist with a PhD in drama.”

“Probably Xan,” Frost said from his post by the door. He was reading the same story on a tablet. “And the FBI. Once the dam breaks, everyone wants to claim they saw the crack first.”

The story was everywhere. It dominated the 24–hour news channels, where talking heads with perfectly coiffed hair debated “The Moral Bankruptcy of the One Percent” and “When Philanthropy is a Facade.” It trended on social media with hashtags like #NethysNightmare and #KieranKhaos. Memes were born, mostly featuring his smug gala photo with captions like “Me planning my daughter’s wedding vs. me planning a murder cover–up.”

The world was feasting on the carcass of her father’s reputation. Elera found she couldn’t care. Let them feast. She had only one job: to listen to the steady beep… beep… beep and pray it didn’t turn into that long. terrible tone again.

DAY TWO: THE AFTERSHOCKS

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Chapter 222 While The World Fell Apart

+5 Pearls

The second day brought more visitors than the first. But it was not to the hospital room–Frost was an immovable object at the door–but to the story in the news.

A statement was released by the lawyer for Sarah Lyros. Clara read it aloud, her voice soft in the quiet

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