Chapter 15 - Eleanor’s Confession
Victor forced my mother to read from a written statement.
She claimed my father had ordered the theft of the government data.
She claimed Northstar Ventures had been created to conceal the crime.
She claimed I knew the truth from the beginning.
Her voice remained steady.
Only her left hand moved.
She tapped two fingers against her leg.
Pause.
Three taps.
Pause.
One tap.
It was a childhood code.
My mother used it during long charity dinners when she wanted to tell me a guest was lying.
Two.
Three.
One.
The numbers represented letters.
B.
C.
A.
Basement.
Connecticut.
Archive.
My father understood at the same moment I did.
Victor was holding her inside Sterling Capital’s old records facility in Connecticut.
The building had been closed after a flood.
It still contained paper files from the company’s earliest years.
Victor ended the call.
Federal agents prepared to raid the facility.
I studied the background first.
A brass clock hung on the wall.
The time showed 6:40.
Our current time was 7:15.
The video had been recorded thirty-five minutes earlier.
Victor wanted us to rush into an empty building.
My mother had left another clue.
She wore a pearl brooch shaped like a bird.
The brooch belonged to my grandmother and had been stored inside a private vault at our Greenwich estate.
Victor had taken her there.
The Connecticut archive was a diversion.
Marcus searched the estate’s security system.
A maintenance alarm had been triggered inside the old wine cellar at 6:38.
We returned home with federal agents.
The wine cellar appeared empty.
My father touched a wooden panel behind the oldest shelves.
When I was a child, he had shown me the passage leading to a storm shelter.
Victor knew about it.
We entered the tunnel.
At the end, my mother sat on the floor beside a steel cabinet.
Victor stood behind her with a gun.
“Alone, Adrian,” he ordered.
My father moved forward.
I stayed in the shadows with Marcus.
Victor demanded access codes to Sterling’s offshore accounts.
My father began reciting numbers.
They were wrong.
Victor struck my mother.
I stepped into the light.
“Your problem was never that my father refused to share power.”
Victor turned the gun toward me.
“Your problem was that you could not create anything without stealing it.”
His expression twisted.
“You sound like Matthew.”
“No.”
I moved closer.
“Matthew sounds like you.”
He fired.
My father pushed me aside.
The bullet struck him beneath the ribs.
My mother screamed.
Marcus returned fire.
Victor dropped the gun and fled into the tunnel.
I pressed both hands against my father’s wound.
Blood spread across his shirt.
His eyes struggled to focus.
“Do not let him take the company,” he whispered.
“I do not care about the company.”
“You will.”
May you like
His fingers closed around mine.
“Because it was always supposed to be yours.”
