Chapter 5 - The Secret in the Basement
We spent the night at a secure property outside the city.
Clara finally told me everything.
Marcus had approached my mother three years ago.
He knew Clara was pregnant.
He knew I loved her.
And he knew exactly how to exploit both facts.
“He told your mother that if I stayed with you, he'd expose your family's business,” Clara said.
I looked at her.
“So she believed him?”
“She believed she could control him.”
“She couldn't.”
“No.”
Clara looked down.
“She made a deal.”
“What deal?”
“She would separate us.”
“And in return?”
“He would leave your company alone.”
I closed my eyes.
“Except he didn't.”
“No.”
“He kept coming.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the documents.
Marcus had gradually acquired pieces of companies connected to mine.
He'd manipulated investors.
Spread rumors.
Created fake debts.
Even planted employees inside my organization.
But there was one thing I couldn't understand.
“Why the baby?”
Clara's expression changed.
“He wanted an heir.”
I stared at her.
“For what?”
“Your company.”
I shook my head.
“My son has nothing to do with my company.”
“Not legally.”
She touched her stomach.
“But Marcus believed that if you died, your child would inherit.”
I went still.
He wasn't trying to steal my company while I was alive.
He was trying to position himself to control it if I died.
Suddenly, everything made sense.
The accidents.
The threats.
The strange financial losses.
The anonymous warnings I'd ignored.
The brake failure six months ago.
The warehouse fire.
Marcus hadn't been trying to scare me.
He had been preparing for my death.
I stood.
“Victor.”
“Yes?”
“Double security.”
“For everyone?”
“For Clara.”
Victor nodded.
Then Clara said:
“No.”
I turned.
“I don't want guards following me.”
“You almost disappeared again.”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Exactly.”
She looked at me.
“I don't want to spend the rest of my life hiding.”
I softened.
“You won't.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me for a long time.
Then she smiled faintly.
“I used to love when you made promises.”
“I remember.”
“I stopped believing them.”
“I know.”
“Earn it back.”
I nodded.
“I will.”
That night, I sat beside her until she fell asleep.
I watched her breathing.
Then I looked at the ultrasound photograph on the nightstand.
My son.
My family.
The future I had never known existed.
For the first time in years, I understood what I had almost lost.
Not a marriage.
Not a reputation.
A life.
At 3:17 a.m., my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
It showed Clara asleep.
Taken from inside the room.
My blood froze.
Then another message:
You can't protect what you can't see.
I stood immediately.
Victor rushed in.
“What happened?”
I showed him.
His face hardened.
“No one entered.”
“Then someone was already here.”
We searched the property.
Nothing.
Until Victor found a tiny camera hidden inside the smoke detector.
I stared at it.
“Who installed this?”
“We're checking.”
Then my phone buzzed again.
This time, it wasn't a photograph.
It was a message.
Ask your mother what happened to your father the night he died.
I stared at those words.
My father had died of a heart attack.
At least, that's what I'd always been told.
I looked toward the sleeping woman beside me.
May you like
Then toward the dark hallway.
Maybe Marcus wasn't the only person in my family who had been lying.
