The FBI investigation was methodical and thorough.
Agent Sarah Chen, a sharp woman in her mid-forties, was assigned as lead investigator. She came to the mansion with a team of federal agents, armed with warrants to search through Damien's personal files, computers, and records.
I watched from the living room as they worked, my hands wrapped around a cup of cold coffee that I couldn't bring myself to drink. Sofia slept upstairs, oblivious to the chaos unfolding below. Damien sat in his home office, cooperating fully, answering every question without his lawyer present.
"He's not helping himself," Agent Chen commented to me as she reviewed files. "Most people in his position would lawyer up immediately. But your husband is volunteering information we haven't even asked for yet."
"He's trying to do the right thing," I said quietly.
"Is he?" Chen asked, looking at me with sharp eyes. "Or is he just ensuring his cooperation will be noted in his sentencing?"
I didn't have an answer.
By evening, Agent Chen requested a private meeting with me. We sat in the formal living room while Damien remained in his office.
"Mrs. Blackwood, I need to ask you some direct questions," Chen said, opening her notebook. "How much do you know about your husband's business practices?"
"Not everything," I admitted. "I knew he bent rules sometimes, operated in gray areas. But I thought it was all for revenge against my father and his family."
"It wasn't," Chen said flatly. "Your husband has been engaged in criminal activity for at least the last fifteen years. He's admitted to evidence tampering in at least forty-three separate cases. But the deeper we dig, the more we find."
Forty-three cases. Forty-three times that justice was compromised because of Damien's manipulation.
"What else?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Chen hesitated, clearly deciding how much to tell me. "We're investigating whether your husband's actions may have contributed to wrongful convictions. There are at least six people currently serving time who may be innocent because of fabricated or tampered evidence your husband provided."
The room spun. Six innocent people. In prison. Because of Damien.
"We're also looking into whether he had any involvement in... more serious crimes," Chen continued carefully. "We've found financial records showing large sums paid to individuals with known connections to organized crime. We're investigating whether these payments were for services rendered."
"What kind of services?" I asked, though I already suspected.
"That's what we're trying to determine," Chen said. "But based on the timeline and the individuals involved, we think it's possible your husband may have employed people to commit acts of violence. Intimidation. Possibly worse."
I stood up abruptly, needing to move, to escape the weight of these accusations. "He wouldn't—"
"He would," Chen interrupted gently. "And I think you know that, Mrs. Blackwood. I think on some level, you've always known exactly who your husband is. You just didn't want to admit it."
She was right. And that realization was devastating.
---
That night, I finally confronted Damien fully.
We were in our bedroom, the door locked, Sofia safely down the hall. I sat on the edge of the bed while Damien stood by the window, looking out at the city lights.
"Tell me everything," I said. "Not the sanitized version. Everything."
Damien was silent for a long moment. Then he turned to face me, and the expression in his eyes was hollow. Broken.
"My father was a good man," he began quietly. "He was a politician, a reformer. He wanted to clean up corruption in the city. He was building a case against a network of corrupt officials, and Richard Hart was at the center of it all."
"Your father was building a case against my father?" I asked, shocked.
"Yes. My father had evidence that your father had bribed city officials, destroyed competing businesses, and covered up embezzlement. My father was going to expose everything. It would have destroyed Richard Hart's empire."
Damien's voice grew hollow. "But Richard Hart found out. He used his connections to ruin my father's career first. Leaked false information to the press. Bribed officials to fabricate evidence against my father. By the time the trial ended, my father was convicted of the very crimes he'd been investigating your father for committing."
"Oh my God," I whispered.
"My father spent two years in prison," Damien continued. "Two years fighting an appeal that never came through because Richard Hart had the system rigged. He was released on a technicality, but he was broken. Humiliated. The man I knew was gone."
Damien paused, his hands clenching into fists. "He killed himself three months after his release. Wrote me a note saying he couldn't live with the shame. He was forty-eight years old."
Tears streamed down Damien's face, but his voice remained steady. "I was twelve years old. I found him."
My heart broke for the boy he'd been. For the pain that had shaped him into the man he'd become.
"Damien, I'm so sorry—"
"Let me finish," he said harshly. "Because there's more. Much more."
He sat down on the edge of the bed, his shoulders sagging. "When I turned eighteen, I became obsessed with revenge. I worked, invested, and built an empire specifically to come after Richard Hart. But I couldn't just use business or law—the system was rigged in his favor. So I learned to manipulate it. To fabricate evidence, to bribe officials, to ensure that justice happened even if the courts wouldn't provide it."
"How many people did you hurt?" I asked quietly.
"I don't know anymore," he said. "I started counting at first, but it became too many. Dozens of business rivals taken down. Competitors destroyed. Politicians eliminated from office. Some of them were guilty of crimes. Some of them were just in my way."
"Six innocent people are in prison," I said, repeating what Agent Chen had told me. "Because of you."
"I know," he said, his voice breaking. "And I can't undo that. I can't give them back their lives."
"What about the organized crime connections?" I asked. "The people you paid?"
Damien's silence was answer enough.
"How many people, Damien?" I pressed. "Did you have people killed?"
"Not killed," he said carefully. "But hurt, yes. Intimidated. Threatened. Sometimes worse. I told myself they deserved it, that they were guilty of something, that I was serving justice. But really, I was just a man consumed by vengeance, and I didn't care who got in my way."
I felt tears running down my face. "I can't—I can't believe I loved someone like you."
"I know," he said, and his voice was so filled with pain that it broke my heart all over again. "I can't believe it either. I became the very thing my father fought against. Corruption. Manipulation. The perversion of justice for personal gain."
He looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. "That's why I had to confess, Sophia. Not because I wanted to be seen as good or noble. But because I couldn't look at Sofia and pretend to be someone I'm not. I couldn't raise her while harboring this secret. I couldn't be your husband while living a lie."
"What happens now?" I asked.
"I go to prison," he said simply. "For a very long time. My empire will be seized to pay restitution. My companies will be investigated and likely dismantled. Everything I built will be destroyed."
"And us?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"There is no us," Damien said quietly. "Not romantically, anyway. I'm not a good man, Sophia. I'm not even a man who deserves redemption. I'm just a man who finally decided to stop destroying everyone around him."
---
The next morning, the full scope of Damien's crimes went public.
The headlines were devastating:
"BLACKWOOD EMPIRE EXPOSED AS CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE - MULTIPLE INNOCENT PEOPLE WRONGFULLY IMPRISONED"
"BILLIONAIRE CEO CONFESSES TO DECADES OF CRIMES, INCLUDING FABRICATED EVIDENCE AND ORGANIZED CRIME CONNECTIONS"
"HART FAMILY SCANDAL DEEPENS AS REVENGE PLOT UNRAVELS"
The business world was in chaos. Stock prices plummeted. Board members resigned. Business partners sued. The Blackwood name became synonymous with corruption.
And I was caught in the center of it all.
Media descended on the mansion in waves, demanding answers. How much did I know? Was I complicit? Was I a victim or a partner in crime?
I hired a lawyer immediately—not for Damien, but for myself. Because I had to protect Sofia. I had to protect my future.
"They're going to come after you," my lawyer, David Morrison, warned me during our first meeting. "They'll try to prove you knew about his crimes. They'll investigate your finances, your business dealings, everything."
"I didn't know," I said. "Not the full extent. I knew he'd fabricated some evidence, but I didn't know about the people he'd hurt. The lives he'd destroyed."
"It doesn't matter what you know," David said bluntly. "What matters is what they can prove. And if they can't prove anything, the court of public opinion will judge you anyway."
He was right. Within days, news outlets were speculating about my involvement. Some called me an accomplice. Others portrayed me as a victim of Damien's manipulation. A few actually called me a mastermind who'd orchestrated the revenge while Damien took the fall.
The truth was far more complicated than any of those narratives.
I'd married a man driven by revenge and hadn't looked too closely at his methods. I'd enjoyed the power and the luxury that his criminal enterprise provided. I'd wanted my family destroyed, and I'd let Damien do it, no matter what it cost.
That made me complicit, even if not legally culpable.
---
Three days after Damien's public confession, my father called from prison.
"I heard the news," he said quietly. "About Blackwood. About what he did."
"Yes," I said.
"Did you know?" he asked.
"Not everything. But enough. I knew he wasn't entirely honest with the evidence."
My father was silent for a long moment. "Your mother and I made a lot of mistakes, Sophia. We did terrible things. But we didn't fabricate evidence against innocent people. We didn't destroy people's lives to serve our revenge."
"No," I agreed. "You were just regular criminals, not driven by vengeance."
"That's not what I meant," my father said gently. "I'm saying that despite everything, I'm proud of you. You fell in love with a man who was capable of great evil, and when you discovered who he really was, you didn't look away. You didn't pretend it was okay. You held him accountable."
Tears filled my eyes at his words.
"And now you're going to have to figure out who you are without him," my father continued. "Without any of us. Can you do that, Sophia?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "But I'm going to try."
After I hung up, I went to the nursery and watched Sofia sleep. My perfect daughter, born from lies and revenge and darkness. But also born from love—at least the love was real, even if everything else was built on a foundation of corruption.
I made a decision in that moment.
I was going to rebuild. Not my marriage. Not my empire. But myself.
I was going to become the person Sofia needed her mother to be—someone honest, someone strong, someone who chose justice over revenge, redemption over destruction.
It was going to be the hardest thing I'd ever done.
But this time, I was going to do it right.