Chapter 8: Project Crown
Project Crown was not a trust.
It was a theft operation.
For twelve years, Victoria had diverted money from pension funds, hospital endowments, charitable foundations, and municipal development projects.
The stolen funds were transferred through dozens of shell companies before entering overseas accounts controlled by the Montgomery family.
The estimated total exceeded 1.4 billion dollars.
Emily recognized several company names.
She had reviewed them during her years with the federal task force.
The cases had been closed for lack of evidence.
Now she understood why.
Witnesses disappeared.
Records were destroyed.
Investigators were bribed.
And someone inside the government had repeatedly warned Victoria.
Daniel found references to a person identified only as The Senator.
Every major transaction required that person’s approval.
Ethan claimed ignorance.
“My mother never discussed politics with me.”
Emily almost laughed.
“Your family hosted senators for dinner every month.”
“That doesn’t mean I knew about this.”
“No,” she said. “It means you trained yourself not to notice.”
The federal agents removed box after box from Hawthorne Hall.
Near midnight, Detective Ortiz called Emily from the estate.
“We found a photograph of Martin Vale.”
“Where?”
“In the room. He was standing beside your balcony railing.”
“Then he cut it.”
“Probably. But there’s another man in the picture.”
Ortiz sent the image.
Emily enlarged it.
The second man wore a dark coat and turned slightly away from the camera.
His face was partially visible.
Ethan, sitting across the hospital room, saw the screen.
He went rigid.
“That’s my father.”
Charles Montgomery had died five years earlier.
At least, that was what the family had told the public.
A private plane carrying Charles had vanished over the Atlantic.
No wreckage was ever recovered.
The Montgomery family held a closed-casket memorial.
Victoria inherited controlling interest in the empire.
Emily studied the photograph’s timestamp.
It had been taken six weeks before her fall.
Charles Montgomery was alive.
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And if he had helped plan her death, Victoria was not the true architect of Project Crown.
She was only guarding the throne.
