Chapter 3 - THE DEAD MAN’S WARNING
Julian reached the mansion twelve minutes later.
The front gate stood open.
Both security guards were missing from their posts.
The lights along the driveway had been turned off.
Only the west wing glowed against the darkness.
Cole’s unmarked car was parked near the main entrance.
Julian left his engine running.
He entered through the open front door.
“Cole?”
No answer.
The mansion felt wrong.
Too quiet.
The grandfather clock in the foyer had stopped at 9:17.
Julian moved through the hallway.
Broken glass covered the floor outside his office.
Someone had forced open the concealed drawer.
The red-room key was gone.
“Cole?”
“In here.”
Julian followed the voice toward the west wing.
The red room had once been his father’s private study.
Its walls were covered in dark burgundy silk.
After his father died, Julian had locked it and left everything untouched.
Now the room looked like a laboratory.
Metal shelves filled the walls.
Boxes of prescription medication were stacked beneath the windows.
Three computers sat on the antique desk.
A voice-synthesis device rested beside them.
Photographs covered a corkboard.
Julian entering restaurants.
Julian meeting executives.
Julian jogging near the lake.
Julian and Martha attending a charity gala.
Julian kissing Bianca outside a theater.
Some photographs were dated years before Bianca had introduced herself.
Cole stood near the desk.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
“What happened to you?”
“Someone came through the window.”
“Did you see them?”
“Black clothes.”
“Mask.”
“About six feet tall.”
“Male?”
“Probably.”
“They hit me with that.”
Cole pointed toward a brass statue on the floor.
Julian looked around.
“Where is the video?”
Cole turned the laptop toward him.
The image was paused.
Julian’s father sat in the same room.
He looked pale.
Sweat covered his forehead.
A clock behind him displayed 2:11 in the morning.
Julian’s throat tightened.
He had not seen his father alive in nine years.
Cole pressed play.
Alexander Rossi looked directly into the camera.
“My name is Alexander Dominic Rossi.”
“I am recording this on October seventeenth.”
“If you are watching it, then I was unable to protect my family myself.”
Julian stepped closer.
His father’s voice was weak.
But his eyes were sharp.
“For twenty-three years, Vincent Hale has served as my attorney.”
“He has also stolen from Rossi International.”
“I discovered the theft six months ago.”
“He created shell companies.”
“He forged signatures.”
“He redirected pension funds.”
“He believed I would never notice.”
Alexander coughed.
Then wiped blood from his mouth.
Julian’s entire body became cold.
“I confronted him yesterday.”
“He denied everything.”
“Tonight, I began feeling ill after drinking from a bottle of whiskey he brought me.”
“I have contacted no one.”
“I do not know who in my security team he controls.”
Julian looked at Cole.
“My father’s death was ruled cardiac arrest.”
Cole nodded.
“No autopsy.”
Julian remembered.
Vincent Hale had advised against it.
He had said Alexander’s medical history made the cause obvious.
Martha had been too devastated to argue.
Julian had been thirty-four and drowning in grief.
The video continued.
“Vincent cannot access the company without Julian.”
“He needs my son’s signature.”
“Or he needs Julian removed.”
“He will not move immediately.”
“He is patient.”
“He will wait until Julian trusts the wrong person.”
Julian looked at the photographs of Bianca.
Alexander leaned closer to the camera.
“Vincent has a daughter.”
Julian stopped breathing.
Cole froze beside him.
Alexander continued.
“She was born from an affair.”
“Her legal name is Bianca Elise Mercer.”
Julian stared at the screen.
The room seemed to tilt.
Bianca had told him her parents died when she was a child.
She claimed she had been raised by an aunt in Vermont.
Alexander coughed again.
“He has hidden her existence for decades.”
“She studied behavioral psychology.”
“She is intelligent.”
“She is patient.”
“And Vincent intends to use her.”
The video suddenly flickered.
Alexander turned toward a sound beyond the camera.
Someone had entered the room.
He reached beneath the desk.
Then the recording ended.
Julian stood motionless.
Cole closed the laptop.
“I’m sorry.”
Julian looked at Bianca’s photographs.
Five years.
She had watched him for two years before meeting him.
Their first encounter at the museum had not been accidental.
The spilled champagne.
The apology.
The dinner invitation.
The affection.
The proposal he had planned tonight.
Every part of it had been designed.
“She never loved me.”
Cole did not answer.
Julian laughed once.
The sound held no humor.
“She watched me for years.”
“She studied my habits.”
“She drugged my mother.”
“She planned to marry me.”
“What happens after the wedding?” Cole asked.
Julian looked toward another computer.
A legal document was open on the screen.
DRAFT SPOUSAL AUTHORIZATION.
He scrolled.
The document granted Bianca authority to act for Julian in the event of medical incapacity.
A second file contained an amendment to the Rossi International voting trust.
A third listed life-insurance policies totaling one hundred and twenty million dollars.
“They make me incapacitated,” Julian said.
“Or dead.”
Cole pointed toward the medication crates.
“They could make it look natural.”
Julian opened another folder.
Inside were dozens of audio files.
His voice.
Martha’s voice.
Board members’ voices.
Some were real recordings.
Others were labeled GENERATED.
One file was titled JULIAN CONSENT FINAL.
He played it.
His own voice filled the room.
“I authorize Bianca Mercer to assume temporary voting control of my shares.”
Julian stopped the recording.
“It sounds exactly like me.”
“That won’t hold up legally by itself,” Cole said.
“Not by itself.”
Julian looked at the forged documents.
“But combined with medical records showing cognitive decline?”
“And witnesses claiming I said it?”
“It could delay the board long enough for them to move money.”
Cole walked toward the shelves.
“Your father said Hale stole pension funds.”
“They may need the company to cover whatever is missing.”
Julian opened a spreadsheet.
Numbers filled the screen.
Transfers.
Accounts.
Foreign corporations.
The missing amount appeared at the bottom.
$614,800,000.
Julian whispered the number.
Cole stared at it.
“They didn’t just want your inheritance.”
“They need your entire company.”
Julian’s phone rang.
Bianca.
He looked at Cole.
“Answer it.”
Julian switched on the speaker.
“Where are you?” Bianca asked.
Her voice was gentle.
Concerned.
“I’m driving back from the hospital.”
“Is Martha okay?”
“She’ll survive.”
Bianca exhaled shakily.
“Thank God.”
Julian looked at the crates of sedatives.
“She told the doctors someone gave her a controlled drug.”
Silence.
Only for a fraction of a second.
Then Bianca sounded shocked.
“What?”
“They found it in her blood.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Could she have taken something accidentally?”
“Maybe.”
Bianca lowered her voice.
“Julian, this is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“She hides things.”
“She forgets what she takes.”
“She could have found old medication.”
Julian closed his eyes.
Even now, she sounded believable.
“I need you to stay somewhere else tonight,” he said.
Bianca inhaled sharply.
“You’re asking me to leave?”
“Until Martha calms down.”
“Julian, she accused me of pushing her.”
“I know.”
“And you believe her?”
He stared at the paused image of his father.
“I don’t know what to believe.”
That answer pleased her.
He could hear it in the softness that returned to her voice.
“Come home.”
“We’ll talk.”
“I can explain everything.”
“Where are you?”
“At my apartment.”
That was a lie.
Cole pointed toward the security monitor.
A camera outside the mansion had just reactivated.
A black sedan was parked near the service entrance.
Bianca’s car.
Julian continued speaking.
“I’ll call you when I arrive.”
“Please do.”
“I love you.”
Julian forced the words out.
“I love you too.”
He ended the call.
Cole glanced toward the hallway.
“She’s here.”
Julian opened another camera feed.
Bianca entered through the service door.
She was no longer wearing the dress from the pool.
She had changed into black pants and a dark jacket.
A man walked behind her.
Older.
Silver-haired.
Vincent Hale.
Julian had known him almost his entire life.
Hale had attended his birthdays.
Hale had spoken at his father’s funeral.
Hale had taught Julian how to negotiate his first acquisition.
Now he was entering Julian’s house with Bianca.
Cole reached for his weapon.
“We need backup.”
Julian grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
“Julian, they are inside.”
“If we arrest them now, we have attempted murder and illegal drugs.”
“That’s enough.”
“Not for everything.”
Julian pointed at the spreadsheet.
“Six hundred million dollars.”
“My father’s murder.”
“Years of surveillance.”
“People inside my company.”
“I want every one of them.”
Cole’s expression hardened.
“You are not a detective.”
“No.”
“I’m the man they need alive.”
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Cole turned off the desk lamp.
The room fell dark.
Footsteps approached.
Bianca’s voice came from outside the door.
“The laptop should have finished deleting by now.”
Hale answered.
“If Cole saw the video, we change the plan.”
Bianca sounded calm.
“Julian still trusts me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He told me he loved me.”
Hale laughed quietly.
“Men say many things before they realize they have been deceived.”
The door handle moved.
Cole raised his weapon.
Julian stepped behind the curtains.
The door opened.
Bianca entered first.
Hale followed.
Bianca saw the damaged room.
The overturned chair.
The blood on the floor.
Her expression changed.
“He was here.”
Hale moved toward the laptop.
“The files are still open.”
Bianca looked around.
“Then where is he?”
Hale examined the blood.
“Gone.”
Bianca walked toward the surveillance board.
She touched a photograph of Julian.
“For three years, I have done everything you asked.”
“I made him trust me.”
“I made him turn against his own mother.”
“I was hours away from receiving his proposal.”
“You pushed Martha too soon,” Hale said.
“She recognized me.”
“She found the medical files.”
“You should have moved them.”
“I tried.”
“She walked in.”
“So you pushed her into the pool?”
Bianca turned toward him.
“She would have ruined everything.”
“You were supposed to make her appear incompetent.”
“Not kill her before the marriage.”
Bianca’s voice became colder.
“She was already destroying Julian’s trust in me.”
“And now?”
“Now I finish it tonight.”
Julian’s pulse hammered behind the curtain.
Hale looked at her.
“How?”
Bianca removed a syringe from her jacket.
“Julian comes home.”
“He finds me frightened.”
“I tell him someone broke in.”
“I inject him while he comforts me.”
Hale studied the syringe.
“That dose will stop his heart.”
“It will look like the same condition that killed his father.”
Behind the curtain, Julian felt rage spread through every part of him.
Hale lowered his voice.
“And Martha?”
Bianca smiled.
“The hospital will handle her.”
Julian nearly stepped out.
Cole gripped his shoulder from the darkness.
Bianca placed the syringe on the desk.
Then her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Her smile disappeared.
“It’s the hospital.”
She answered.
“Yes?”
A woman spoke faintly through the phone.
Bianca’s eyes widened.
“When?”
She turned toward Hale.
Then ended the call.
“What happened?” Hale asked.
Bianca’s face had gone pale.
“Martha is gone.”
Julian’s blood turned cold.
Hale frowned.
“What do you mean gone?”
“She disappeared from her room during the fire alarm.”
Julian reached for his phone.
It had no signal.
Hale walked toward the door.
“Who took her?”
Bianca looked at the laptop.
Then toward the dark curtains.
Her eyes slowly narrowed.
“I think Julian did.”
She picked up the syringe.
“And I don’t think we’re alone in this room.”
May you like
The lights snapped on.
Julian found himself staring directly into Bianca’s eyes.
