The Disgraced Husband Is Actually Royalty In Hiding

Chapter 6_The Accused

The whole room went silent.

Everyone was looking at Ethan. The guests. The guards. Brandon. The Whitmore family. And from the far side of the hall, Count Kael.

Ethan's mind moved fast. One wrong word now, and everything was finished.

He slowly stood up. He let his hands shake. He made his face look scared and confused.

"I don't know," he said in a small, broken voice. "I don't know why he said that. I just ran to help him. He was bleeding. He grabbed my hand and started saying crazy things."

"He called you Your Highness," Sophia said again. Her voice was barely a whisper.

"He was dying, Sophia!" Ethan's voice cracked. "He didn't know what he was saying. Maybe he thought I was someone else. Maybe he was seeing ghosts. I don't know!"

An old woman in a green dress nodded sadly. "Poor Henry. He was very old. Last month at dinner, he called the waiter 'Mother.' His mind was going."

A few other guests nodded. Some of them looked relieved. A crazy old man saying crazy things. That was easy to believe.

But Ethan saw Kael's face across the room.

Kael did not look relieved. He looked like a man solving a puzzle.

Ethan quickly pushed the little key Bramwell gave him deep into his shoe while pretending to fix his sock. Nobody saw.

Then Brandon stepped forward.

"Wait a minute," Brandon said loudly. "Wait. Where is the shooter?"

Everyone looked around.

Ethan turned toward the big window. His stomach dropped.

The blond waiter was gone.

The window was open. Cold night air blew in. On the floor, where the man had been lying, there was nothing. Only a small black gun on the marble floor, right next to where Ethan had been standing.

"There!" Brandon pointed. "The gun! It's right next to him!"

Every eye turned to Ethan.

"No," Sophia said quickly. "No, there was a man. A waiter. He tried to run past us and Ethan…"

She stopped.

She had been about to say *Ethan knocked him down in three seconds like a trained soldier.* But she couldn't say that. Because then they would ask how a poor dishwasher learned to fight like that.

"Ethan what?" Brandon asked. He smiled a little. "Go on, Sophia. Ethan what?"

Sophia said nothing.

"I'll tell you what I saw," Brandon said, turning to the crowd. "When the lights came back on, this man was kneeling next to the body. The gun was near him. And he's a refugee nobody knows anything about. No past. No family. No records." He shook his head. "Isn't that interesting?"

People started whispering. Some stepped back from Ethan, like he was dangerous.

"That's crazy," Gerald said weakly. "Ethan washes our dishes. He can't even fix a light bulb."

"Then he won't mind talking to the police," Brandon said.

Three security guards walked over and stood around Ethan.

Ethan looked at Sophia. She looked back at him with wide, scared eyes. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Diane stepped forward. Her face was red with anger and shame.

"Take him," she said coldly to the guards. "I don't care. Just get him away from my family."

The police came twenty minutes later.

They put handcuffs on Ethan in front of everyone. The guests took photos with their phones. Chloe was filming everything and laughing.

As the police walked him out through the front doors, Ethan passed close to Count Kael.

Kael leaned forward just a little and spoke very softly, so only Ethan could hear.

"Strange night, Mr. Cole. Isn't it?"

Ethan kept his eyes on the floor. "Yes, sir."

"Henry Bramwell was a very careful man," Kael said. "He did not get confused. He did not see ghosts. If he called you something…" Kael smiled. "…I wonder what he knew."

Ethan said nothing. He kept walking.

But as he got into the back of the police car, he looked through the window. Kael was standing at the top of the stone steps, watching him leave.

He was holding his phone to his ear. And he was still smiling.

The police station smelled like old coffee and cleaning soap.

They put Ethan in a small gray room with a metal table and two chairs. The handcuffs stayed on.

A detective came in. A tired woman in her forties with short brown hair and a cheap brown jacket. She dropped a folder on the table and sat down.

"Detective Rosa Martinez," she said. "Let's make this quick, Mr. Cole. It's two in the morning and I'm tired."

"Okay," Ethan said quietly.

"A seventy-eight-year-old man was shot dead tonight in a room full of the richest people in America. The gun was found next to you. Fifty people say you were kneeling next to the body when the lights came on." She leaned back. "And the dying man called you 'Your Highness.' You want to explain that?"

"He was confused," Ethan said. "I just tried to help him."

"Uh-huh." Martinez opened the folder. "Here's my problem, Mr. Cole. I looked you up. Ethan Cole. Thirty-one years old—"

"Twenty-eight," Ethan said.

Martinez looked up. "The papers say thirty-one."

Ethan said nothing. His papers were fake. Leo had made them years ago. A small mistake. Too small to matter. He hoped.

"Arrived in America six years ago as a refugee," Martinez continued. "From Poland. No family. No friends. No school records. No work records before three years ago, when you married into the Whitmore family." She closed the folder. "It's like you didn't exist until six years ago."

"I was poor," Ethan said. "Poor people don't leave many records."

Martinez studied him for a long time.

"You know what's funny?" she said. "I've been a cop for twenty years. I've talked to a lot of poor men. They're scared in this room. They sweat. They cry. They beg." She tilted her head. "You're pretending to be scared. But your heartbeat is calm. Your eyes are watching the door, the camera, and my gun. Every few seconds. Like a soldier."

Ethan's face did not move.

But inside, he thought: *This woman is dangerous.*

Before Martinez could say anything else, the door opened.

A tall man walked in. Silver hair. Perfect gray suit. Expensive leather briefcase. He looked like he had never lost a fight in his life.

"Detective," the man said with a polite smile. "My name is Richard Hale. I am Mr. Cole's lawyer."

Martinez stared at him. "Richard Hale? From Hale and Whitford? You charge two thousand dollars an hour."

"I do," Hale said calmly.

"And a dishwasher hired you?"

"My client's financial situation is not your business, Detective." Hale opened his briefcase and took out some papers. "But this is. Security footage from the mansion's outside cameras. It shows a young blond man in a waiter's uniform jumping out of a window at 10:07 p.m. and running into the trees. The same time as the shooting. Also, my client's hands were tested an hour ago. No gunpowder."

Martinez read the papers. Her jaw got tight.

"Unless you want to explain to a judge why you arrested an innocent man in front of fifty witnesses," Hale said, "I suggest you remove those handcuffs."

Martinez was quiet for a long moment. Then she stood up, walked around the table, and unlocked the handcuffs.

"You're free to go, Mr. Cole," she said.

Ethan stood up and rubbed his wrists.

As he walked to the door, Martinez spoke again.

"Mr. Cole."

He stopped.

"Twenty years," she said quietly. "I always know when a man is lying to me. And you, Mr. Cole, are the best liar I've ever met." She sat back down. "I'll be seeing you again."

Outside the station, the sun was coming up. The sky was pink and gray.

Leo was waiting in a black car across the street. Ethan got in.

"Are you okay, sir?" Leo asked.

"I'm fine." Ethan took off his shoe and pulled out the little key. It was made of old brass, with a number carved into it: **214**. "Bramwell gave me this before he died."

Leo looked at it. "A locker key? A bank box?"

"Find out," Ethan said. "Whatever this opens, Bramwell died to give it to me. He was going to tell me the name of the traitor." He closed his hand around the key. "Leo. Who knew Bramwell would be at that ball tonight?"

Leo was quiet. "Only our inner circle, sir. Five people. Me. Nina. Marco. Daniel. And Teresa."

"Then one of those five people sold him to Kael."

"Sir, I would trust all of them with my life."

"So would I," Ethan said quietly. "That's what scares me."

The black car stopped two streets away from the Whitmore house. Ethan walked the rest of the way.

It was seven in the morning. The front door was unlocked. Ethan walked inside.

The whole family was in the living room, still in their clothes from the ball. Nobody had slept. Diane sat on the sofa with her arms crossed. Gerald stood by the window. Chloe was on her phone.

And Sophia sat at the dining table, her face pale, her eyes red from crying.

Everyone went silent when Ethan walked in.

"They let him go?" Chloe said in surprise. "Seriously?"

"I didn't do anything," Ethan said quietly. "There was security footage. They found the real shooter running away."

"Do you know what you did to us last night?" Diane stood up. Her voice was shaking with anger. "My daughter's husband taken away in handcuffs! In front of the Circle! In front of Count Kael! Everyone in Boston is talking about it! Chloe's video already has two million views!"

"Three million," Chloe said, without looking up.

"Our name is destroyed," Diane said. "Destroyed! Brandon said the Circle will never invite us again. Never!"

"Mrs. Whitmore, I—"

"Don't speak!" Diane screamed.

She walked to the dining table. She picked up a thick white envelope and pulled out a stack of papers. She slammed them down on the table in front of Sophia.

Ethan saw the first page.

**PETITION FOR DIVORCE.**

"Brandon's lawyers brought these an hour ago," Diane said. "Everything is ready. All Sophia has to do is sign."

The room was completely silent.

Ethan looked at Sophia.

Sophia did not look at him. She stared at the papers. Her hands were shaking. A tear rolled down her face and fell onto the page.

"Sophia," Ethan said softly.

She closed her eyes.

"Last night," she whispered, "a man died in front of me. He called you a prince. Then I watched you fight like a soldier in the dark. Then you looked me in the eyes and told me you were just a dishwasher." She opened her eyes. "Three years, Ethan. I don't even know who I married."

"Sophia, please—"

"Sign it, darling," Diane said. "End this nightmare."

Slowly, Sophia reached across the table.

And she picked up the pen.