Chapter 8 - What My Father Had Stolen
“No.”
Sebastian said it before I did.
“He asked for me.”
“He doesn’t get you.”
“They have my parents.”
“He wants you because he knows I’ll come.”
“So?”
“So I will.”
“Without me?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Valerie.”
“I’m getting tired of that tone.”
“And I’m getting tired of the possibility of you dying.”
Mara interrupted before we destroyed the room.
“Nicholas expects Sebastian to refuse.”
We looked at her.
“That means the demand is theater.”
Sebastian understood immediately.
“He doesn’t actually need Valerie.”
“No. He needs you distracted.”
“From what?”
Mara pointed at Daniel’s files.
“The evidence Daniel stole thirty years ago.”
We searched his belongings.
Nothing.
Then I remembered something.
My father had handed me an old photograph at the warehouse.
I pulled it from my purse.
Behind the photograph was a thin strip of paper.
Numbers.
Sebastian looked at them.
“Bank coordinates.”
Mara shook her head.
“No. Library classification.”
We drove to the New York Public Library.
At two in the morning.
Sebastian had ways of opening buildings.
I decided not to ask.
The code led us to an archival microfilm drawer.
Inside was a flash drive.
Mara stared.
“Daniel, you paranoid genius.”
Back at Crown Meridian, Sebastian opened the drive on an isolated computer.
The files contained thirty years of evidence.
Names.
Payments.
Crimes.
Enough to destroy Thomas’s network.
But one folder was encrypted.
Its name:
VALERIE.
Sebastian looked at me.
“You want this opened?”
“Yes.”
It required a date.
I tried my birthday.
Wrong.
My adoption date.
Wrong.
Vivienne’s death.
Wrong.
Then I remembered the photograph.
The date written beneath the message.
Three days from now.
I entered it.
The folder opened.
A video appeared.
Vivienne Ward sat before a camera.
My biological mother.
She looked younger than I remembered from society photographs.
Tired.
Scared.
“My darling Valerie,” she began.
Tears immediately filled my eyes.
“If you are watching this, then I failed to keep this world away from you.”
She explained everything.
Thomas had used legitimate businesses to hide an international financial network.
Daniel discovered it.
Vivienne helped him collect evidence.
Elena protected the children.
Richard planned to expose the organization.
All four believed they were protecting Sebastian and me.
Instead, fear destroyed them.
Then Vivienne said something unexpected.
“Thomas cannot be defeated by violence. Violence is the language he understands best. He must be exposed.”
Sebastian leaned closer.
“Everything required is on this drive. But one person must release it.”
Vivienne looked directly into the camera.
“Valerie.”
I froze.
“The accounts are legally tied to your inheritance.”
Sebastian looked at me.
“What inheritance?”
Mara whispered, “Vivienne’s controlling shares.”
Apparently when she died, Vivienne left billions in assets inside a trust.
The beneficiary had been hidden.
Me.
“If Valerie authorizes disclosure,” Mara said, “every protected financial record can be released.”
Sebastian looked troubled.
“What happens to her identity?”
“It becomes public.”
There it was.
The trap.
Thomas had hidden behind privacy agreements connected to my inheritance.
To expose him, I had to publicly claim everything.
Which meant newspapers.
Investigations.
Criminal scrutiny.
Sebastian’s enemies.
My entire life becoming a headline.
“No,” Sebastian said.
I looked at him.
“It isn’t your decision.”
“It puts a target on you forever.”
“It ends this.”
“It might end you.”
I approached.
“You said no more secrets.”
“This isn’t secrecy.”
“No. It’s control.”
His jaw tightened.
“Don’t.”
“You don’t get to dismantle your empire for me and then tell me I can’t risk anything for you.”
“I’m not doing it for you.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Fine. Not only for you.”
He looked away.
I touched his face.
“You want a life outside this?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
I turned to Mara.
“What do I sign?”
Sebastian grabbed my wrist.
I looked down at his hand.
He immediately released me.
“Please,” he said.
My heart ached.
“I’m scared too.”
That night, I authorized release.
Documents went simultaneously to federal investigators, major newspapers, and international regulators.
At 6:03 A.M., the first story broke.
At 6:17, three banks froze Thomas Ward’s accounts.
At 6:41, arrest warrants were issued.
At 7:12, Nicholas called.
Sebastian answered.
“You just killed them.”
My blood went cold.
“Who?”
“Elena and Daniel.”
“You touch them—”
Nicholas laughed.
“You still think this is about our parents.”
Then someone knocked on the penthouse door.
Security shouted.
A package had arrived.
Inside was a wedding invitation.
My name.
Sebastian’s.
The ceremony date was tomorrow.
Location unknown.
Mara turned the card over.
On the back, Nicholas had written:
You have twenty-four hours to marry Valerie, Sebastian. Otherwise her parents disappear forever.
I stared at Sebastian.
He looked almost as confused as I felt.
“Why,” I whispered, “would Nicholas care whether we get married?”
Mara’s face changed.
Because she knew.
May you like
And when she finally spoke, I understood we had missed the most important part of Vivienne’s inheritance.
“If Valerie marries a Ward,” Mara said, “Sebastian gains legal control over everything Thomas has spent thirty years protecting.”
