Chapter 8 - My Father's Last RecordingThe first shot hit the stage.
I dragged Clara behind the seats as bullets tore through the old wood. Luca's team had been ordered to wait for my signal, and I had no intention of giving Arthur the satisfaction of knowing exactly where we were.
A second burst of gunfire shattered the projector.
Then the theater fell silent.
Arthur's voice drifted through the darkness.
“Bennett, you've always been predictable. You mistake loyalty for love and obedience for strength.”
I kept my hand over Clara's mouth as footsteps moved across the stage.
“He did the same thing,” Arthur continued. “Your father believed he could control everyone by making them afraid of losing something.”
Clara's fingers tightened around my wrist.
“What do you want?” I shouted.
“To correct a mistake.”
A spotlight flickered on.
Arthur stood near the stage entrance, holding a small black book.
My father's ledger.
“You've spent your life believing Silas Hale built an empire,” he said. “He merely inherited one.”
“You arranged Elena's disappearance.”
“I arranged many things.”
“Did you kill her?”
His smile vanished.
“No. But I know who made her suffer.”
He tossed a small device onto the stage.
A recording began to play.
My father's voice emerged through the theater speakers, unmistakable even after twenty years.
The child must disappear from the records. Bennett cannot know. Elena cannot return. Victor will handle the transfer.
Another voice answered.
Arthur's.
And Eleanor?
She'll sign what I put in front of her.
The recording continued.
If Elena becomes a problem, use the hospital's medical records. Make the world believe the child died. If she keeps searching, remind her what happens to people who interfere with the Hale family.
Clara stared at the stage.
Her entire life had been reduced to a transaction.
Arthur watched her with no visible emotion.
“Your mother should have accepted the arrangement. She would have lived a quieter life.”
“You threatened her,” Clara whispered.
“I offered her a choice.”
“You took her child.”
“Your mother was a woman with no power. You were a baby. Your father was a man who believed himself invincible. Someone had to make the decisions.”
I rose slowly.
“You've spent twenty-five years hiding behind dead men.”
Arthur looked amused.
“And you have spent twenty-five years pretending you were different from them.”
That struck closer than I wanted to admit.
Then Arthur made his real offer.
He would give Clara the original documents proving her identity. He would reveal the location of every remaining record connected to Elena.
In exchange, I would transfer control of my family's legitimate businesses to him and publicly withdraw my claim to the Hale succession.
Clara shook her head.
“Don't listen to him.”
Arthur smiled.
“She understands more than you do, Bennett. She knows family names are only useful when someone is willing to pay for them.”
I looked at the ledger.
“Why now?”
“Because someone has discovered what your father hid in the final pages.”
He opened the book and turned it toward me.
A name had been written beside a series of payments.
Not mine.
Not Victor's.
Eleanor Hale.
My mother had received money every year for twenty-five years.
I felt Clara go still beside me.
Arthur leaned forward.
“Your mother wasn't merely frightened, Bennett.”
He smiled.
“She was paid.”
Then a loud crash erupted from the rear doors.
Luca's men had breached the theater.
Arthur stepped backward into the shadows, disappearing through a concealed exit before anyone could reach him.
I ran after him.
But when we reached the alley, his car was gone.
Only one thing remained.
A sealed envelope on the pavement, addressed to Clara.
She opened it with shaking hands.
Inside was a copy of a birth certificate.
Her mother's name appeared in the first box.
Her father's name appeared in the second.
Clara Reed's eyes moved across the page.
Then she looked up at me.
“I have a question,” she whispered.
May you like
“What?”
“If you're my father, why does this certificate say my biological father was dead before I was born?”
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