Chapter 6
The world tilted.
Evelyn stood frozen, the phone pressed to her ear.
“Marcus,” she said, her voice ice. “If you hurt one hair on their heads—”
“You’re in no position to make threats, sister. I have six men with me. We have enough gasoline to turn that penthouse into a Roman candle. And don’t think your little security team can stop us. I made sure they had a little… accident on the West Side Highway.”
Sarah grabbed Evelyn’s arm.
“He’s lying,” she said. “He has to be lying.”
“Am I?” Marcus laughed. “Check the news, Sarah. Three bodyguards. Dead at the scene. Shame. They seemed like nice boys.”
Arthur was already on his tablet, pulling up the news.
He looked up. Nodded slowly.
“It’s true,” he said. “Car crash. Multiple fatalities. Thirty minutes ago.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“All right,” she said into the phone. “I’m coming. But if anyone gets hurt—”
“Twenty minutes, Evelyn. Not a second more. And come alone. If I see so much as a police uniform, I light the match.”
The line went dead.
Evelyn dropped the phone onto the table.
She looked at her daughter.
At her granddaughter.
At the documents spread across the mahogany.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Absolutely not,” Sarah said. “He’ll kill you the second you walk through that door.”
“Then what do you suggest, Sarah? That I let him burn the staff alive? Maria has worked for me for twenty-two years. Her granddaughter is graduating high school next month. Roberto has a son with leukemia. I will not trade their lives for my safety.”
“Then we go together.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No. He wants the necklace and the will. If he gets both, he wins. If he kills me, he still has to find you. And as long as you’re alive, he hasn’t won.” She pushed the ledger and the copies of the will across the table to Arthur. “You take these. You go to the FBI. You tell them everything. Every name. Every date. Every crime. If I’m not out of that penthouse in an hour, you give them the original ledger. No deals. No hesitation.”
Arthur took the envelope.
His hands were shaking.
“Mrs. Whitmore—”
“That’s an order, Arthur. Not a request.”
She turned to Mom.
“You take Lila. You go to the safe house in the Hamptons. The address is in the lining of my wallet. There’s a car waiting in the garage. It’s unmarked. The driver is a man named Joseph. He has worked for your father since before you were born. He is the only person in this world I trust completely.”
She knelt down in front of me.
She took my face in her hands.
Her eyes were shining.
“Lila, baby,” she said. “I need you to be very brave for me, okay? I need you to go with your mom. I need you to not be scared. I will come for you. I promise. No matter what happens, I will come for you.”
I threw my arms around her neck.
“Don’t go,” I sobbed. “Please don’t go. He’s bad. He’ll hurt you.”
She held me tight.
I could feel her heart beating fast against mine.
“I have to, angel. Sometimes the people we love need us to be brave even when we’re scared. That’s what family does.”
She stood up.
She tucked the original will and the necklace into her purse.
She checked the small handgun she kept in her coat pocket—the one Daddy had given her after the first kidnapping attempt in ’98.
“One hour, Arthur,” she said.
Then she walked out.
The elevator doors closed behind her.
Mom stood staring at the closed doors.
Her face was pale.
Set.
“Okay,” she said, turning to me. “Lila, listen to me. We are not going to the Hamptons.”
Arthur’s head snapped up.
“But Mrs. Whitmore said—”
“I know what she said. But Evelyn is thinking like a CEO. She’s making sacrifices. She’s writing herself off as acceptable collateral damage. I am thinking like a daughter. And like a mother. And I am not letting her walk into that penthouse alone.”
She grabbed the leather journal from the table.
She flipped through it fast.
“Sarah, what are you doing?”
“Dad’s journal,” she said. “He wrote down everything. Every secret. Every weakness. Marcus’s secrets too. If there’s anything in here that can stop him, I need to find it. Now.”
She read while we ran for the garage.
Joseph was waiting by the car, just like Evelyn said.
He was old. Quiet. Had a scar down his left cheek.
“Miss Sarah,” he said, tipping his hat. “I was told to take you and the young miss to Long Island.”
“Change of plans,” Mom said, climbing into the back. “We’re going to the penthouse. And we’re taking the back way.”
Joseph didn’t argue.
He just nodded and got behind the wheel.
The big car pulled out of the garage.
I pressed my face to the window.
The city was fully awake now.
People walked to work.
Taxis honked.
A man sold pretzels on the corner.
Normal life.
While above it all, in the tallest building on Fifth Avenue, my grandmother was walking into a trap.
Mom was still reading.
Her finger traced the lines.
“Come on,” she muttered. “Come on, Dad. Give me something. Anything.”
Then she stopped.
Her finger froze on the page.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“What? What is it?”
She looked up at me.
Her eyes were wide.
“Marcus isn’t just adopted,” she said. “He’s Dad’s biological son.”
Arthur nearly dropped his tablet.
“That’s impossible.”
“Read it.” Mom turned the journal around. “Dad had an affair in 1965. With his secretary—Marcus’s mother. She got pregnant. She was married to a man who couldn’t have children. She and her husband kept the baby. But when the husband died two years later, she couldn’t afford to raise Marcus alone. So she brought him to Dad. Told him the truth. Dad and Mom adopted him legally. Told everyone he was an orphan from upstate. They thought they were doing the right thing. They thought they were saving him.”
She closed the journal.
“But Dad never told Marcus. Never. He thought if Marcus knew the truth—knew he was actually the eldest son, the rightful heir by blood—he’d become even more dangerous. That he’d feel entitled to everything. That he’d destroy the family to get what he thought was his.”
The car swerved as Joseph took a corner hard.
“So all of this,” Arthur said, “the lies, the murders, the theft… Marcus did it all because he thought he wasn’t wanted. Because he thought he had to steal what was never given. But it was his. By blood. It was always his.”
“Exactly,” Mom said. She was already dialing her phone. “And that is how we stop him.”
“Who are you calling?”
“The only person who might still be able to reach him.”
May you like
She pressed the phone to her ear.
“Hello, Marcus?” she said, when he answered. “I’m coming up. And I’m bringing something you’ve been waiting your whole life to hear.”
