Chapter 16 - Evelyn’s Last Gift
The storage vault contained twenty-three paintings.
Adrian ignored them at first.
Then he noticed that every canvas showed the same subject.
White lilies.
Some had one flower.
Some had three.
Some had seven.
Thomas laid the paintings against the wall.
“It’s a sequence.”
Adrian studied them.
The flower counts formed numbers.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Thomas entered them into the old keypad on Evelyn’s locked storage cabinet.
The door opened.
Inside was a laptop.
A handwritten ledger.
And a letter addressed to Adrian.
He opened the letter first.
Adrian,
If I’m wrong about Marcus, burn this and call me paranoid.
If I’m right, you are going to want revenge.
Please don’t give Lily a father who spends the rest of his life becoming the same kind of man who took her mother.
I know what you are capable of.
I also know what you are capable of choosing.
Choose her.
I love you.
Evelyn.
Adrian read it twice.
Then he folded it carefully.
The laptop contained a hidden account Marcus had used for years.
Payments connected him to judges, contractors, police officers, security teams, and Owen Pike.
There were also location logs from Marcus’s private vehicle.
One location appeared repeatedly.
A decommissioned shipping terminal along the Chicago River.
Thomas leaned over the screen.
“That’s where he’ll take Grace.”
Adrian nodded.
“And where he’ll expect me to come.”
Another folder contained audio.
Marcus speaking with Pike.
Marcus approving the route change.
Marcus discussing Adrian’s death.
Marcus ordering Lily found after the crash.
Everything.
Enough to destroy him in court.
Enough to destroy his political protection.
Enough to destroy half of Adrian’s own empire as well.
Thomas looked at him.
“You release this, you lose people too.”
“I know.”
“Companies.”
“Yes.”
“Friends.”
“They aren’t friends.”
“And possibly your freedom.”
Adrian stared at Evelyn’s letter.
“Then I lose it.”
Thomas studied him.
Adrian looked toward the screen.
“For eight months, Marcus believed I would protect my empire before I protected Lily.”
May you like
He picked up the evidence.
“That was his biggest mistake.”
