Chapter 12 - The Secret Inside the HangarFor several seconds, no one spoke.
Eleanor looked from Julian to Chen.
“Is it true?”
Chen lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
Desmond whispered a curse.
Eleanor felt the world narrowing around her.
“Why?”
“Your father asked me to delay the departure,” Chen replied. “I was supposed to keep the plane grounded until he reached the airfield.”
“But you didn't.”
“No. Charles's men arrived first.”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“Tell her the rest.”
Chen remained silent.
“Tell her how you locked the hangar doors while I was inside.”
“I did not know you were aboard.”
“You heard me shouting.”
“I heard several people.”
“You left me there.”
Chen's face tightened.
“Yes.”
Eleanor struggled to understand.
“Why would Father ask you to delay the plane if he knew we were in danger?”
“Because he believed the plane contained the ledger,” Chen said. “He wanted to prevent Charles from moving the evidence. He did not know Julian had boarded it.”
Julian stepped closer.
“And when the aircraft exploded?”
Chen's voice cracked for the first time.
“I believed you were dead.”
“You didn't look for me.”
“I did.”
“You looked for the ledger.”
Chen didn't deny it.
Eleanor turned away, pressing her hands against her mouth.
The people entrusted with protecting her family had made decisions that shaped every year of her life.
Some had acted out of fear.
Some had acted out of ambition.
Some had believed the ends justified the means.
But none of them had asked the children they were supposedly protecting what they wanted.
She faced Julian again.
“What do you want now?”
“To destroy the people responsible.”
“And then?”
He did not answer.
“Julian, what happens after revenge?”
His expression turned cold.
“Nothing happens. There is no after.”
“You can't live forever inside that night.”
“I've already spent twenty-six years living inside it.”
Eleanor approached him slowly.
“You're my brother.”
“And you're the only person I have left.”
“Then stop pointing guns at the people trying to help you.”
His hand trembled.
For one moment, he looked like the boy in her childhood photograph.
Then his phone rang.
He answered, listened, and went pale.
“What happened?”
He said nothing.
“Julian?”
His gaze lifted to hers.
“Mother is gone.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“No. She survived surgery.”
“She was taken from the hospital ten minutes ago.”
Chen immediately called his security team.
Julian paced the room.
“Vivienne has her.”
“Why would she take Mother?” Eleanor asked.
“Because Catherine knows where the second ledger is hidden.”
He stopped abruptly.
“And because she believes my father is still alive.”
Eleanor stared at him.
“Richard is dead.”
Julian's expression was terrible.
“Not according to the last message I received.”
He held up his phone.
A video showed Richard Kingsley sitting in a dark room. His face was bruised, his hands bound behind a chair.
A man stood behind him, speaking calmly.
“Tomorrow, the ledger will be transferred. If the Kingsley family wants Richard returned alive, they will bring the jade pendant and the original phone.”
The video ended.
Eleanor looked at Julian.
“Who sent that?”
“Someone calling himself the Director.”
“Who is he?”
“The man who funded the crash.”
“Charles Ashworth?”
Julian shook his head.
“Charles worked for him.”
Eleanor's stomach turned.
“All this time, we thought Charles was in charge.”
“He was never more than a businessman with an expensive suit and a talent for making other people do his dirty work.”
Chen took a slow breath.
“Then the six men in the original agreement…”
“Were not the ones controlling the operation,” Julian finished. “They were the ones who tried to expose it.”
He looked at Eleanor.
“Father gathered the evidence. Chen hid it. Mother guarded the key. And I was supposed to retrieve the final ledger.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Because I discovered the identity of the Director.”
Julian reached into his coat and removed a sealed envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Eleanor stared at the face.
Her breath stopped.
The man standing beside Richard was older, heavier, and dressed in an impeccable dark suit.
But she recognized the eyes.
The same eyes that had watched her grow up.
The same eyes she had looked into across countless family dinners.
The man in the photograph was Charles Ashworth.
Eleanor frowned.
“But Charles died three years ago.”
Julian nodded.
“The funeral was real. The body was not.”
He turned the photograph over.
Written on the back were five words.
THE DIRECTOR IS YOUR HUSBAND.
Eleanor felt her knees weaken.
“Theron?”
“No,” Julian said. “Someone has been using his identity.”
The front door of the old house slammed.
Footsteps thundered through the corridor.
A voice called out.
“Eleanor!”
She recognized it immediately.
Theron.
Julian raised his gun.
“Don't trust him.”
Theron entered the room, blood seeping through the bandage on his shoulder.
He looked at Eleanor, then at Julian.
“Thank God you're both alive.”
Julian aimed directly at his chest.
“Tell us who you really are.”
Theron stopped.
His face changed.
And when he spoke, the voice was no longer the one Eleanor had known for seven years.
It was deeper. Older.
May you like
“Very well,” he said.
“My name is Charles Ashworth.”
