Chapter 4 - The Family Behind the Smiles
The next morning, I canceled every meeting.
I called my attorney.
Then my private investigator.
Then the head of corporate security.
I didn't tell them why.
I simply said:
“I want every financial transaction connected to Ethan Carter reviewed.”
My investigator called six hours later.
“Sir, you should sit down.”
“I'm standing.”
“Then maybe sit.”
I didn't.
“What did you find?”
“Your brother has been moving money through six shell companies.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-eight million.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where did it go?”
“Some of it went overseas.”
“And the rest?”
A pause.
“Your mother's foundation.”
I closed my eyes.
My mother had always presented herself as the heart of our family.
Charity dinners.
Children's hospitals.
Scholarships.
Public smiles.
Meanwhile, she had apparently been financing my brother.
I called her.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Sweetheart.”
“Why are you transferring company money to Ethan?”
Silence.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Answer me.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“You will.”
I hung up.
Then I called Ethan.
No answer.
His phone was disconnected.
That was when I knew.
He was running.
But there was something else.
The video.
Why would Lily have recorded it?
And why had she been in the garage?
I asked Maria.
“She followed him.”
“Why?”
“He was carrying something.”
“What?”
“A folder.”
“Where is it?”
Maria shook her head.
“She couldn't reach it.”
I went to Lily.
She was sitting at the kitchen table drawing.
“Sweetheart.”
She looked up.
“Daddy?”
“Do you remember the folder Uncle Ethan had?”
She nodded.
“What did it look like?”
“Black.”
“Did it have anything written on it?”
She thought.
“A flower.”
“A flower?”
“White.”
I froze.
My father's old company logo had been a white lily.
That company had belonged to my father.
He had died when I was twenty-six.
The business passed to me.
But there had always been one locked office in the old family house.
My father had called it the archive.
No one had opened it since his death.
I drove there immediately.
Maria came with me.
Lily stayed with security.
The archive was exactly as I remembered.
Dusty.
Dark.
Untouched.
I opened the safe.
Inside was a stack of documents.
At the bottom was a black folder.
With a white lily stamped on the cover.
I opened it.
My father's handwriting covered the first page.
If my son finds this, he must understand one thing: the people closest to him may be the ones most capable of destroying him.
I continued reading.
My father had discovered financial fraud before his death.
Someone had been siphoning money from the company.
He suspected my wife, my mother, and Ethan's father.
But there was another name.
Daniel Brooks.
My father's final note said:
I believe they are preparing to take control of the company after my death.
I looked at Maria.
“Why didn't I know this?”
“Someone hid it.”
I flipped another page.
There was a photograph.
My father.
My mother.
Ethan.
Daniel.
And someone else.
A young woman.
I recognized her immediately.
Maria.
I stared at the photograph.
“That's impossible.”
Maria went pale.
“I've never seen that.”
“You're in this photograph.”
She stepped closer.
Then her face changed.
“I know her.”
“Who?”
Maria pointed to the woman standing beside my father.
“My mother.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“My mother worked for your father.”
My entire understanding of my household collapsed.
Maria's mother had been part of my father's inner circle.
And suddenly I understood why Maria had come to work for my family.
It wasn't coincidence.
It had never been coincidence.
“Why did you come here?”
Maria looked at me.
“To finish what my mother started.”
I reached for the gun in my desk.
Maria didn't move.
“I'm not here to hurt you.”
“Then what are you here for?”
“To save you.”
“From whom?”
May you like
She looked at the photograph.
“From the same people who killed your father.”
