Chapter 4 - Eleanor couldn't speak.Victoria stood trembling in the doorway.
“Mom?” Eleanor whispered.
Victoria nodded.
“Mother ordered the accident.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“That's impossible.”
“I saw the documents.”
“Where?”
Victoria hesitated.
“In her old office.”
Charles's voice turned cold.
“Victoria, stop talking.”
She looked at him.
“For once, I'm telling the truth.”
Charles moved toward her.
Luca blocked him.
“Let her finish.”
Victoria wiped her face.
“Our mother wasn't the person everyone thought she was.”
Eleanor remembered her.
Elegant.
Warm.
Soft-spoken.
She had died when Eleanor was twenty-six.
Or so Eleanor had believed.
“What did she do?”
Victoria looked at Samuel.
“Tell her.”
Samuel sighed.
“Your mother established fourteen shell corporations.”
Eleanor frowned.
“For what?”
“To move ownership of Whitmore assets.”
“Why?”
“To hide them from Charles.”
Eleanor stared.
“Why would she hide them from her own husband?”
Samuel looked toward Charles.
“Because she believed Charles was laundering money through the company.”
Eleanor's mind raced.
The hidden transfers.
The debt restructuring.
The suspicious acquisitions.
Her mother had known.
And she had tried to protect Eleanor.
Then Charles had said something that changed everything.
“Your mother wasn't trying to protect you.”
Eleanor turned.
“She was trying to use you.”
“What?”
“She needed someone to inherit everything after she disappeared.”
Eleanor's face hardened.
“You knew she was alive?”
Charles didn't answer.
“Dad!”
He finally spoke.
“I suspected.”
Richard laughed bitterly.
“You knew.”
Charles glared.
“You have no right.”
“I was there.”
Richard stepped forward.
“I was with Elena the night she left.”
Eleanor stared.
“You were with my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you let everyone believe you died?”
“Because we were being hunted.”
“By whom?”
Richard looked at Charles.
“Not by your mother.”
Eleanor's breathing stopped.
“Then who?”
Richard's eyes darkened.
“Someone inside Moretti Global.”
Luca stiffened.
“My father?”
“No.”
Richard's gaze stayed on Luca.
“Someone above him.”
Luca's expression changed.
“My father had no one above him.”
Richard said nothing.
Samuel suddenly looked toward the windows.
“Everyone down!”
A loud crack split the room.
The window shattered.
Luca dragged Eleanor behind a marble column.
Bullets struck the wall.
Security fired back.
The mansion erupted into chaos.
Eleanor crouched on the floor.
She saw Charles running toward a hidden panel behind the fireplace.
He pressed something.
A section of wall opened.
Eleanor stared.
“What is that?”
Charles disappeared through it.
She followed.
Luca grabbed her arm.
“Don't.”
“My father is running.”
“That may be why you shouldn't follow.”
Another shot echoed.
Eleanor pulled free.
“I have spent my entire life being told I don't count.”
She looked at him.
“I'm done listening.”
She entered the passage.
Luca followed.
Behind the wall was a narrow staircase descending underground.
Charles was already at the bottom.
He opened a steel door.
Eleanor reached it just as he stepped inside.
The room beyond was enormous.
Files filled the walls.
Hard drives.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Maps.
Weapons.
And in the center stood a large glass cabinet.
Inside it was a single object.
A black leather journal.
Eleanor walked closer.
She recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her mother's.
Charles stood behind her.
“This room was never supposed to be found.”
Eleanor turned.
“How long has it existed?”
“Twenty years.”
“For what?”
Charles stared at the journal.
“To keep records of everything.”
“Everything about what?”
Charles finally looked at her.
“The Whitmore family.”
Eleanor opened the journal.
The first page contained one sentence.
ADRIAN VALE IS ELEANOR'S FATHER.
Eleanor's hands began shaking.
Then she turned the page.
The second entry was dated six years ago.
She read it.
And her face went cold.
CHARLES KNOWS THE TRUTH.
Another page.
RICHARD KNOWS THE TRUTH.
Another.
LUCA MUST NEVER FIND OUT.
Eleanor stopped.
She looked back.
Luca stood in the doorway.
He had read the final line.
His face was unreadable.
“Why,” he asked softly,
“must I never find out?”
No one answered.
Then the steel door slammed shut behind them.
May you like
And somewhere in the darkness, a lock clicked.
From the other side.
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