Chapter 9 - The Rules of Pretending
Security moved instantly.
Louis pulled Corrine behind him as smoke flooded the van.
Men shouted outside.
A vehicle accelerated.
Then silence.
When the smoke cleared, Dawson was gone.
So was the planted drive.
Louis’s security chief swore.
Corrine coughed.
“Did they get what they wanted?”
Louis looked at the empty warehouse feed.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor wouldn’t risk this many people for a fake drive unless he wanted us looking here.”
Corrine understood.
“Diversion.”
Louis pulled out his phone.
Too late.
A message waited.
Thank you for leaving your house empty.
Louis’s face changed.
The penthouse.
They arrived twenty minutes later.
Nothing appeared stolen.
Until Louis entered his father’s old study.
The safe was open.
Corrine stood behind him.
“What was inside?”
Louis stared at the empty shelf.
“One letter.”
“All this for a letter?”
“It wasn’t from my father.”
“Who wrote it?”
Louis turned.
“My mother.”
Corrine had never heard him mention her.
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never read it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Louis looked toward the safe.
“She wrote it before she died.”
Corrine softened.
“And you couldn’t open it.”
“No.”
Victor had taken the only words Louis’s mother had left him.
For the first time, Corrine saw that the powerful man everyone feared could still be wounded by something as ordinary as grief.
She reached for his hand.
Louis looked down.
“This isn’t part of pretending,” she said.
His fingers slowly closed around hers.
“I know.”
Neither let go.
And somewhere across the city, Victor Sloane opened the stolen letter.
May you like
What he discovered inside was something even Louis had never known.
His mother had known exactly where Victor’s greatest secret was buried.
