Chapter 3 - The Ghost at the Door
Micah moved toward the door, but Eliza stood up, waving him back.
"Put that down, Micah," she said firmly. "If it's your father, iron won't stop him. And if it's Frank, he won't use force."
Eliza walked to the heavy oak door, unlocked the deadbolt, and pulled it open.
Standing on the porch beneath the dripping eaves was not Damon, nor was it his head of security, Frank.
It was a woman.
She wore a tailored cashmere coat the color of dried blood, high leather boots, and a wide-brimmed black hat that cast a deep shadow over her face. In her gloved hands, she held a sleek silver umbrella. Behind her in the driveway sat a dark, unmarked Mercedes SUV with blacked-out windows.
Slowly, the woman lifted the brim of her hat.
Her face was striking—sharp cheekbones, pale skin, and striking green eyes that matched Delaney’s and Phoebe’s exactly. She looked older than she had in the portraits that hung in the east wing of the Westchester estate, but there was no mistaking who she was.
"Hello, Eliza," Celeste Northcott said, her voice smooth, refined, and completely devoid of warmth. "You've grown quite large. A boy, I assume?"
Behind Eliza, a chair scraped violently against the floor.
"Get out," Delaney’s voice trembled with absolute, venomous hatred as she stepped into the hallway. "Get off this porch before I call the police."
Celeste didn't look at Delaney; her eyes remained fixed on Eliza. "The police won't help you, child. Half the county force is on Damon's payroll, and the other half is currently surrounding the private chapel, waiting for a funeral that never took place."
Wyatt stepped beside Delaney, his tall frame filling the corridor. His face was unreadable, but his fists were clenched so tight his skin was white. "What are you doing here, Celeste?"
"Saving your lives," Celeste said simply. "Or, more accurately, saving you from your father's foolishness and Quentin Rusk's ambition."
"You were receiving data transfers from Rusk tonight," Wyatt said coldly, stepping closer to the door. "I just saw the routing logs. You're working with him."
Celeste let out a short, dry laugh—a sound like dry leaves scraping across concrete. "Working with him? Quentin Rusk is a parasite who has been leeching off the Northcott fortune for twenty years. He didn't send me data out of loyalty, Wyatt. He sent it because I hold the original promissory notes for the Helena Care Foundation."
Eliza held up a hand, stopping Wyatt from speaking. She looked at Celeste, her eyes calm and searching.
"Thirteen years ago," Eliza said, "Damon told these children that you packed your bags in the middle of the night, took twenty million dollars from the family reserve, and walked away because you didn't want to be a mother."
"Damon is a romantic who writes his own history to feel like a martyr," Celeste replied without a shred of guilt. "I didn't abandon them. I was traded."
Phoebe stepped out from the living room, her voice barely a whisper. "Traded?"
Celeste’s eyes flicked to Phoebe for the briefest second, a flash of something cold and clinical passing through her expression. "Helena found out I was funneling family assets into private accounts in Zurich. She offered me a choice: leave the country with twenty million and my freedom, or go to a federal penitentiary for grand larceny and lose access to the children anyway. I chose the smart path."
"You chose money over us," Micah spat from the dark corner of the hall.
"I chose survival," Celeste corrected sharply. "And right now, you four are about to make the same mistake your father made—believing that morality matters when an empire is collapsing."
She reached inside her cashmere coat and pulled out a thick leather folder, holding it out toward Eliza.
"What is that?" Eliza asked, making no move to take it.
"The real medical records of Helena Northcott," Celeste said. "Helena didn't have heart disease, Eliza. She had stage-four pancreatic cancer, diagnosed fourteen months ago. She was going to die before Christmas regardless."
Eliza stared at her. "What?"
"She knew she was dying," Celeste explained. "And she knew that under the terms of the Northcott family trust, if she died of natural causes while Damon was married to an outsider like you, fifty percent of the voting shares in Northcott Global would automatically convert into a trust for your unborn child upon his birth."
Eliza’s hand flew to her stomach.
"Helena couldn't tolerate the idea of an outsider's child inheriting control of the company," Celeste continued. "So she staged her own death. She planned to frame you for poisoning her, ensuring you would be arrested, stripped of parental rights, and divorced before the baby was born. But Quentin Rusk knew that if Helena died of murder, the corporate shares would be frozen by federal investigators for years."
Wyatt’s eyes widened as the financial picture snapped into focus. "So Rusk altered the dosage to kill her early, knowing Damon would blame Eliza, issue the divorce immediately, and execution of the estate would fall under Rusk's administrative board!"
"Precisely," Celeste said, nodding approvingly at Wyatt. "Rusk wants the voting shares. And right now, Damon is sitting in that library, blind with grief and rage, playing right into Rusk's hands."
Eliza looked at the folder in Celeste’s hand. "Why are you giving this to us?"
"Because," Celeste said, her green eyes shining with cold, calculating ambition, "if Damon falls, Rusk takes Northcott Global. And if Rusk takes Northcott Global, my twenty-million-dollar annuity checks stop coming. I need Damon to remain in control—and to do that, he needs to know who his real enemy is."
She stepped forward, thrusting the folder into Eliza’s hands.
"Take it," Celeste whispered. "Fix his mistake. Save his empire. And then, Eliza... take my children and run as far away from this family as you can."
Before anyone could answer, the dark Mercedes SUV down the driveway flashed its headlights twice.
May you like
Celeste turned, adjusting her hat. "Rusk’s men are on their way here now. They know Wyatt accessed the server. If I were you, I would get out of this house in the next five minutes."
She walked down the porch steps, her heels clicking crisply against the stone, and disappeared into the rain.
