Chapter Eight: The Traitor at Vale
The assassination plan could not have been created without information from inside my father’s organization.
Security routes.
Vehicle changes.
Medical data.
Private schedules.
Someone close to him was working with Blackridge.
Dad canceled the Washington appearance publicly, then privately kept the schedule unchanged.
He intended to draw the traitor out.
I hated the plan.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s controlled.”
“That’s what Nathan said about everything.”
My father looked at me across the dining table in his townhouse.
We had not eaten there together since before my wedding.
“I won’t hide forever,” he said.
“This is not hiding. It’s staying alive.”
“The person betraying us believes the plan remains active. That is our advantage.”
“And if they suspect Celeste talked?”
“They don’t know the ledger has been opened.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
My recovery was progressing, but some nights I still woke hearing Nathan count.
One hundred.
One hundred fifty.
Two hundred.
I had spent years believing power meant never showing fear.
Now I understood that fear was information.
It told you what mattered.
My father mattered.
“I’m coming to Washington,” I said.
“No.”
“I can identify behavioral inconsistencies.”
“We have investigators.”
“They don’t know your inner circle like I do.”
“You have been through enough.”
“And you trained me never to leave a pattern unfinished.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
The summit took place inside a heavily secured hotel.
Officially, my father was expected to arrive at seven in the evening.
Secretly, he entered at five through a service corridor.
Only six people knew.
His chief of staff.
His head of security.
Two senior executives.
Rebecca.
And me.
At six fifteen, the fire alarm activated on the west side of the building.
Security teams began moving guests toward designated exits.
But my father’s head of security, Marcus Dane, instructed him to use an alternate elevator.
The assassination plan specified that exact elevator.
Dad looked at me.
I looked at Marcus.
He had served our family for nineteen years.
He had carried me out of a lake when I was eleven.
He had stood beside my father at my mother’s funeral.
And he had just directed us toward a kill zone.
“Marcus,” I said quietly.
He stopped.
The corridor doors opened behind him.
Federal agents entered.
Marcus did not run.
He slowly removed his security badge and placed it on the floor.
My father looked older in that moment than I had ever seen him.
“Why?” he asked.
Marcus met his eyes.
“Because you were going to choose her.”
He looked at me.
“The succession plan. The company. Everything.”
I felt cold.
Blackridge had not bought Marcus with money.
They had bought him with resentment.
May you like
He believed decades of loyalty entitled him to my father’s empire.
And he had decided murder was easier than disappointment.
