Chapter 6
Trevor locked the ballroom doors.
“Where is the tape?”
Clara stood beneath the stage lights.
She forced herself not to look toward the hidden cameras.
“You came quickly.”
Trevor raised the gun.
“I asked you a question.”
Evelyn walked down the center aisle as if arriving for a concert.
Bennett remained several steps behind her.
He wore the Alden crest ring.
The same ring visible on the library footage.
Clara looked at his hand.
“You stole the safe key.”
Bennett glanced at the ring.
“I placed it beneath Evelyn’s chair.”
Evelyn stopped.
“You?”
“I needed Clara to suspect you.”
“You struck my guard and started the fire?”
“The fire was Trevor’s work.”
Trevor looked uneasy.
Evelyn turned on Bennett.
“You told me Clara burned the library.”
“And you believed me because you wanted to.”
Clara listened carefully.
The alliance was already cracking.
“Where is the tape?” Trevor demanded again.
“Somewhere safe.”
He pointed the gun at her chest.
“Try again.”
Clara looked at Evelyn.
“Does he know Lydia survived?”
Trevor’s hand shook.
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed.
“She is alive?”
“She told police you ordered him to kill her.”
“I told him to bring her to me.”
Trevor stared at his aunt.
“You said she had to disappear.”
“I meant from public view.”
“You gave me a gun.”
Bennett sighed.
“Trevor, stop talking.”
Clara almost smiled.
They were doing exactly what she needed.
Evelyn faced Bennett.
“Why did you file Thomas’s second will?”
“To protect the company.”
“You mean to take the company.”
“The foundation would hold the shares.”
“And you control the foundation.”
Bennett stepped closer to her.
“We control it.”
“No. You control it. Just as you controlled the money from River Crown.”
Trevor lowered the gun slightly.
“Wait. The fake contracts were his?”
Bennett looked at him with contempt.
“You were not invited into this conversation.”
“You told me Victor stole the money.”
“Victor discovered it,” Clara said. “That’s why they silenced my mother.”
Evelyn’s gaze snapped toward her.
“Helen should have kept quiet.”
There it was.
An admission.
Clara’s heart pounded.
“What did she discover?”
Evelyn realized too late.
Bennett answered for her.
“Nothing that matters now.”
“It matters to the police.”
Trevor looked toward the windows.
“What police?”
“Every word in this room is being recorded.”
He spun toward the ceiling.
Bennett did not.
He watched Clara.
“You are bluffing.”
“Am I?”
Trevor fired at the nearest camera.
The gunshot shattered glass.
Alarms screamed.
Steel shutters began lowering over the ballroom exits.
Marcus’s voice came through the speaker.
“Drop the weapon.”
Trevor fired again.
Evelyn ran toward a side door.
It locked before she reached it.
Bennett grabbed Clara and pulled a knife from his sleeve.
The blade pressed against her throat.
“Open the doors.”
Marcus appeared behind reinforced glass in the control booth.
“Release her.”
Bennett tightened his arm.
Clara could feel his heartbeat against her back.
It was steady.
He had planned for this.
“Open them,” he repeated, “or she dies.”
Trevor aimed at the control booth.
Evelyn struck his arm.
“Idiot. The glass is reinforced.”
The shot went into the ceiling.
Sprinklers erupted.
Water poured over them.
Clara drove her heel into Bennett’s foot.
He grunted but did not release her.
She slammed her head backward.
His nose broke.
The knife moved away for one second.
Clara seized his wrist and twisted.
Ryan rushed from behind the stage curtain.
He hit Bennett hard enough to send them both across the floor.
The knife slid beneath a chair.
Trevor aimed at Ryan.
Evelyn stepped between them.
“Don’t shoot my son!”
“He betrayed us!”
“He is still my son.”
Bennett wiped blood from his mouth.
“No, Evelyn. He is leverage.”
Ryan stared at him.
“Is that all I ever was to you?”
Bennett’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Clara saw it.
“You know,” Ryan said. “You know you’re my father.”
Trevor looked confused.
Evelyn whispered, “This is not the time.”
“It is the only time,” Ryan replied.
Bennett stood.
“Victor raised you.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“You had every advantage. My name would have weakened you.”
“No. Your truth would have freed me.”
Police struck the ballroom doors from outside.
Trevor grabbed Evelyn.
“We need another exit.”
“There is one beneath the stage,” Bennett said.
Clara had not known that.
Bennett did.
He ran toward the curtain.
Ryan tackled him.
Trevor fired.
Ryan jerked and fell.
Clara screamed.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
Evelyn stared at Trevor in horror.
“You shot him.”
“He was in the way.”
Evelyn struck him across the face.
Trevor pushed her down.
Clara crawled toward Ryan.
He was conscious.
“Stay with me.”
“It missed the artery,” he whispered.
“You’re not a doctor.”
“I know where my shoulder is.”
Even wounded, he tried to smile.
Trevor dragged open a trapdoor beneath the stage.
Bennett kicked Ryan aside and climbed into the passage.
Evelyn followed.
Trevor backed toward it with the gun raised.
Clara shielded Ryan.
The ballroom doors burst open.
Marcus fired.
Trevor’s gun flew from his hand.
Police tackled him before he reached the trapdoor.
Clara pointed beneath the stage.
“They went through there.”
Marcus led officers into the tunnel.
Paramedics rushed to Ryan.
Clara rode with him to the hospital.
He remained conscious until doctors took him into surgery.
Helen waited in a protected room upstairs.
When Clara entered, her mother stood and searched her face.
“Ryan?”
“He was shot.”
“By whom?”
“Trevor.”
Helen sat beside her.
Clara’s clothes were wet from the sprinklers and stained with Ryan’s blood.
For years, she had believed seeing her mother again would repair the empty place inside her.
Instead, she had found a wounded woman who carried as much pain as she did.
“I’m sorry,” Helen whispered.
“For what?”
“For all the years.”
“You did not choose them.”
“I remembered your face. I just couldn’t remember how to reach you.”
Clara took her hand.
“Grandpa knew.”
“Yes.”
“Did you hate him?”
Helen’s eyes filled.
“At first. Then I remembered Samuel’s photograph of you. Thomas had to protect you.”
“He could have gone to the police.”
“Samuel owned officers, judges, reporters. Thomas spent years building a case that could survive them.”
“Why did he live like he was poor?”
“He was hiding his resources. If Evelyn knew how much control he still had, she would have killed him sooner.”
Clara froze.
“Sooner?”
Helen looked away.
“You think they killed him.”
“I think Samuel made him sick.”
Thomas had died after a sudden neurological illness.
Doctors called it an aggressive disorder.
Clara had watched him lose the ability to walk, speak, and swallow.
“He was poisoned?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But he told me during his last visit that his hands began shaking after Bennett brought him a bottle of whiskey.”
Clara stood.
“Bennett visited him?”
“Several times.”
“He told me he barely knew Thomas.”
“Samuel lies even when the truth would serve him better.”
A doctor entered.
Ryan had survived surgery.
The bullet had passed through his shoulder without damaging major vessels.
Clara went to his room.
He was pale and medicated.
When he saw her, relief softened his face.
“You stayed.”
“For now.”
“Fair.”
She sat beside him.
“Bennett and Evelyn escaped through the tunnel. Police found a vehicle waiting near the east gate.”
“They planned it.”
“Yes.”
“Trevor?”
“In custody.”
“He’ll blame everyone else.”
“He already is.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“My mother stepped in front of me.”
“She did.”
“Does that mean there’s something human left in her?”
“It means she didn’t want you shot.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Margaret Cho called from headquarters.
The ballroom recording had already changed everything.
Bennett’s admissions were incomplete but damaging.
Evelyn’s statement that Helen should have remained quiet had been broadcast live before Trevor shot the camera.
Company stock continued falling.
Banks threatened to freeze credit.
Thousands of employees feared losing their jobs.
The board wanted Clara back.
“The court order still suspends me,” Clara said.
“Not anymore,” Margaret replied. “The handwriting expert concluded Thomas’s second will was forged.”
“By whom?”
“The signature was copied from a hotel agreement Bennett notarized.”
Clara looked through the hospital window at the city lights.
“Restore my authority.”
“The board meets at seven.”
“I’ll be there.”
“You need rest.”
“My company is collapsing.”
Ryan opened his eyes.
“Our company.”
Clara looked at him.
He corrected himself.
“Your company. I’m still learning.”
At seven, Clara appeared by video before the board.
Trevor’s seat was empty.
Evelyn’s seat was empty.
Bennett had been removed as counsel.
Grant looked ten years older.
The independent directors voted to restore Clara as chair.
Ryan participated from his hospital bed and supported her.
Grant abstained again.
After the vote, Clara addressed hotel managers across the country.
“No employee will miss a paycheck. No hotel will close because of this family’s crimes. Effective immediately, an independent forensic team will review every contract, account, and foundation payment.”
Grant shifted in his seat.
Clara noticed.
“Mr. Alden, do you object?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look frightened?”
Grant swallowed.
“Because Bennett did not act alone.”
“Who helped him?”
“I did.”
Ryan stared at his uncle.
Grant continued.
“For twelve years, I approved false invoices. Bennett told me the money protected the family.”
“How much?” Clara asked.
“Forty-six million dollars.”
The number hung in the air.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who does?”
Grant looked toward the boardroom camera.
“Evelyn.”
Clara’s phone buzzed.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph taken inside the hospital.
Helen was asleep in her protected room.
A man’s hand held a syringe beside her neck.
May you like
Below it were four words.
Give me the company.
