Chapter 5 - The Man Who Wanted Emily Broken
Daniel Prescott drove to his father’s house before sunrise.
Stephen was waiting in the library.
“You’re lying.”
Stephen poured coffee.
“I wish I were.”
“My mother had nothing to do with the Harrisons.”
“You were six. You don’t know what she had to do with anyone.”
Daniel threw Richard’s stolen letter onto the desk.
“Explain.”
Stephen looked at it with disgust.
“Your mother, Elaine, worked for the fertility clinic.”
Daniel remembered.
Vaguely.
Before Elaine Prescott became a prominent charity executive, she had worked in hospital administration.
“She hated Margaret Harrison,” Stephen continued.
“Why?”
“Because years before Charles married Margaret, he dated your mother.”
Daniel stared.
Stephen continued.
“Elaine believed Charles would return to her. He didn’t. When Margaret became a patient at the clinic, your mother accessed records she never should have seen.”
Daniel’s voice lowered.
“What did she do?”
“We never proved every detail.”
“But?”
“She interfered with the treatment.”
Daniel sat.
“That’s insane.”
“Yes.”
“Whose genetic material was used?”
Stephen looked away.
“Unknown.”
“You said it wasn’t accidental.”
“I know your mother manipulated the records. I do not know whose sample ultimately became part of the procedure.”
“Did Charles know?”
“Not about Elaine.”
“Why not?”
“Because after your mother died, I found documents in a locked box. I buried them.”
Daniel stared at his father.
Stephen stepped closer.
“I buried them because you were thirteen. Because Elaine was dead. Because Emily was a child. Because revealing it would have punished everyone except the person responsible.”
Daniel’s breathing became shallow.
“So our family caused this.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me date Emily.”
“I begged you to treat her well.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“You should’ve told me.”
“You should never have needed a family secret to avoid becoming cruel.”
The words landed hard.
Stephen picked up Richard’s letter.
“You exposed Lucas because you were jealous.”
Daniel said nothing.
“You exposed Emily because you wanted to hurt her.”
“She humiliated me.”
“No. She discovered you were using her.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
Stephen continued.
“And now you have turned your mother’s sin into your own.”
Daniel stood.
“I can fix it.”
“How?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
Because the truth was that the story had escaped him.
Media outlets were repeating claims he never made.
Anonymous social accounts accused Emily of fraud.
Commentators speculated that Charles Harrison had hidden her parentage to protect billions.
The Harrison company’s shares were falling.
And someone else had begun feeding documents to reporters.
Daniel knew the first leak had been his.
The rest were not.
Back in Maplewood, Lucas returned to apartment 3B for the first time since the scandal exploded.
Reporters lined the street.
Walter had painted a sign and hung it on the repair-shop door.
YES, HE’S RICH. NO, HE STILL HAS TO FINISH HIS SHIFT.
Lucas laughed despite himself.
Walter hugged him when he arrived.
Then punched his shoulder.
“You’re a billionaire.”
“Yes.”
“You let me pay you seventeen dollars an hour.”
“That was the agreement.”
Walter stared at him.
“I called you an idiot forty times.”
“Probably more.”
“I made you clean the employee bathroom.”
“It needed cleaning.”
Walter shook his head.
Then his expression softened.
“You coming back?”
“If you’ll have me.”
“You know how ridiculous that question is?”
Lucas smiled.
“Good.”
Walter pointed a wrench toward the waiting room.
“Someone’s here.”
Emily sat alone.
Lucas stopped.
She stood.
For several seconds, they just looked at each other.
“I thought you were in New York,” Lucas said.
“My father had meetings. I couldn’t breathe there.”
He nodded.
“Coffee?”
“Is it Walter’s?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
Lucas laughed.
They walked outside.
Sunset spread over Maplewood.
Emily looked toward the old utility truck.
“You really came back.”
“I said I would finish the year.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Because of your father?”
“No.”
Lucas faced her.
“Because I don’t want the lesson to become fake just because people know my name.”
Emily studied him.
“What lesson?”
“That work matters. People matter. How you treat someone when they can do nothing for you matters.”
She looked toward the garage.
“And us?”
Lucas’s voice softened.
“Especially us.”
Emily folded her arms.
“Lucas, I don’t know how to trust you again.”
“You don’t have to do it today.”
“What if it takes months?”
“I’ll wait.”
“What if it takes longer?”
“I’ll wait longer.”
She stared at him.
“No gifts?”
“No gifts.”
“No trying to solve my family’s problems with money?”
“No.”
“No private investigator secretly fixing everything?”
Lucas hesitated.
Emily narrowed her eyes.
He smiled.
“Fine.”
She almost smiled.
Then her phone rang.
Charles.
Emily answered.
Her face changed.
“What?”
Lucas moved closer.
Emily listened.
“Are you sure?”
She ended the call.
“What happened?”
“The legal documents sent to reporters were forged.”
“That’s good.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“They were created using real internal Harrison files.”
Lucas’s expression changed.
“Meaning?”
“Someone inside my father’s company is helping.”
Hours later, Lucas and Emily met Charles at the estate.
Charles’s security chief had discovered that confidential trust documents were accessed from an executive account.
The account belonged to Martin Hale.
Charles’s longtime chief financial officer.
“Martin?” Emily whispered. “He’s been here since I was twelve.”
Charles looked devastated.
Lucas asked, “Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“His house is empty. His phone is off.”
Lucas studied the access logs.
“This wasn’t Daniel.”
Charles looked up.
“How do you know?”
“Daniel wanted the scandal public. Whoever forged these documents wants something more.”
“What?”
Lucas pointed at several transactions.
“The market.”
Charles leaned closer.
Someone had placed enormous financial positions betting that Harrison Industries stock would fall.
Emily whispered, “They’re profiting from this.”
“Yes.”
Charles’s face hardened.
“How much?”
“If the stock keeps dropping? Tens of millions.”
Lucas looked at the timestamps.
Then something caught his attention.
“One of these trades was placed before the first article appeared.”
Emily frowned.
“So someone knew before Daniel leaked it?”
“Yes.”
Charles asked, “Who?”
Lucas looked toward the security logs.
“Whoever convinced Daniel to start the fire.”
Daniel, meanwhile, was discovering the same thing.
He reviewed old messages with Melissa Grant.
His original email had gone only to her.
Yet the first anonymous financial account had opened positions against Harrison Industries six hours before Melissa published anything.
Someone had known Daniel’s plan before it happened.
There were only two possibilities.
Melissa had leaked it.
Or Daniel’s communications were being watched.
He opened his laptop.
A notification appeared.
Remote access detected.
Daniel went still.
Someone was currently inside his computer.
He disconnected from Wi-Fi.
Too late.
A message appeared on the screen.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE ENVELOPE ALONE.
Daniel stared.
Then another:
YOUR MOTHER STARTED THIS 26 YEARS AGO. YOU’RE GOING TO FINISH IT.
Daniel grabbed his phone and called his father.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
He drove to Stephen’s house.
The front door was open.
“Dad?”
Silence.
He entered the library.
A chair lay overturned.
Stephen’s phone was on the floor.
Daniel saw blood on the edge of the desk.
His face went white.
“Dad!”
A sound came from behind him.
Daniel turned.
Someone struck him.
He collapsed.
Before losing consciousness, he heard a man whisper:
“You should’ve stayed jealous, Daniel.”
The stranger leaned closer.
“Curiosity is what gets people killed.”
And when Daniel woke hours later, his father was gone—and the only thing left on the desk was an old employee photograph from the fertility clinic.
One face had been circled.
Daniel recognized him immediately.
Martin Hale.
May you like
Emily Harrison’s trusted family CFO.
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