CHAPTER 9 — NICHOLAS
My brother’s death had been called an accident.
A boating engine failure.
A storm.
A seventeen-year-old boy alone on the water.
For years, my father refused to discuss the details.
Now Samuel was using Nicholas to lure me into a trap.
“Don’t listen to him,” my father said.
I turned on the phone’s speaker.
“Tell me what you mean, Samuel.”
My uncle’s voice filled the business center.
“Nicholas discovered money missing from the company. He confronted Victor.”
My father’s jaw tightened.
“That’s a lie.”
“Then why was the investigation sealed?”
I looked at my father.
“Was there an investigation?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation hurt.
“Yes.”
Samuel laughed softly.
“There it is.”
My father closed his eyes.
“Nicholas found evidence that Samuel was stealing from a construction subsidiary.”
Samuel’s voice sharpened.
“Victor blamed me because he couldn’t admit his own son was reckless.”
“The night Nicholas died,” my father continued, “he had taken copies of the evidence and planned to bring them to me.”
I felt dizzy.
“Did Samuel know?”
“We believe he did.”
Samuel began shouting through the phone.
“No one ever proved anything!”
My father stepped closer to the speaker.
“Because you bribed the marina mechanic and destroyed the engine records.”
The call went silent.
Then Samuel spoke very calmly.
“You should have let the dead stay buried.”
The line disconnected.
The detective looked at my father.
“You never reported this?”
“I did. The evidence disappeared before charges could be filed.”
“And you kept him on the board?”
“I kept him close where I could watch him.”
I stared at my father.
“You let me have dinner with him. You let him stand beside me at Nicholas’s memorial.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“No. You were protecting the company’s reputation.”
He flinched because it was partly true.
My father loved me.
But he had also hidden the ugliest truth of our family to protect the Ashcroft name.
In that way, he was not entirely different from Eleanor.
The building sensors suddenly changed.
Marissa moved out of the archive.
Then her signal began racing down the stairwell.
“She escaped,” the manager said.
Seconds later, my phone rang.
Marissa was crying.
“Vivienne, don’t come here. Dominic isn’t in control.”
“Where are you?”
“Seventeenth-floor stairwell.”
“What happened?”
“Samuel has a gun.”
My father grabbed the phone.
“Get down and stay behind the concrete wall.”
A loud bang sounded through the call.
Marissa screamed.
Then the line went dead.
On the building schematic, her motion signal stopped.
Another signal began moving toward her.
May you like
Samuel.
End of Chapter 9…
