Chapter 8 - The Night the Safe Was EmptyThe next morning, the safe was gone.
Not broken.
Not forced.
Gone.
The entire black metal box had disappeared from Grandma's library.
We had secured the house overnight.
There was a security company at the gate.
Two guards inside.
No one reported entering.
Yet the safe was missing.
Adrian arrived within twenty minutes.
He walked into the library and stopped.
“This wasn't done by amateurs.”
“What does that mean?”
“The security system was disabled for exactly eleven minutes.”
“By whom?”
“We don't know.”
Emery checked the logs.
“Someone used an authorized code.”
I looked at him.
“Whose?”
He turned the monitor toward me.
The code belonged to Mother.
I called her.
She answered immediately.
“What?”
“Did you enter Grandma's house last night?”
“No.”
“The security log says your code was used.”
“I don't have her code.”
Silence.
Then she whispered, “Who told you?”
I froze.
“You just said you didn't have it.”
Another silence.
Then she hung up.
I looked at Emery.
“She knows.”
Later that day, Adrian discovered something buried inside Grandma's trust documents.
A clause.
It had been activated after her death.
It transferred controlling interest in several private holdings to me.
Not immediately.
Only after one condition was met.
I had to submit to an independent forensic audit.
I agreed.
The audit revealed something worse.
Apex had been targeted from inside.
Someone had spent years obtaining proprietary data.
Internal systems.
Supplier contracts.
Client lists.
Patent drafts.
None of it had been stolen randomly.
It had been copied systematically.
The trail led to an executive assistant.
She confessed.
She said Solange had contacted her.
I confronted my sister again.
This time she didn't deny it.
“I didn't know what Mom planned.”
“What did she plan?”
“To take control of Apex.”
“Why?”
“Because she said Grandma left too much to you.”
I stared at her.
“She was planning this before Grandma died.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped.”
Solange cried.
“I was scared.”
“You're always scared when consequences arrive.”
She looked away.
Then she said, “There was another person.”
“Who?”
“Marcel.”
“Where is he?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
She shook her head.
“He called Mom the night before Grandma died.”
My blood went cold.
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether Grandma had signed something.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
“Solange.”
She covered her face.
“I only heard one sentence.”
“What sentence?”
She lowered her hands.
“He said, ‘If Cordelia speaks, all of us go down.’”
The air seemed to vanish.
“All of us?”
Solange nodded.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Nothing.
“Hello?”
Breathing.
Then a man's voice.
“Your grandmother left you a second will.”
I froze.
“What?”
The caller continued.
“The document Adrian has is only the public version.”
“Who are you?”
“You don't need to know.”
“Where is the second will?”
Silence.
Then:
“Find the room where your grandmother kept the things your mother never knew existed.”
The call ended.
I looked at the library.
Then I remembered something.
Grandma had once told me:
Some truths need to stay where nobody thinks to look.
May you like
There was one room in her house I had never entered.
The old greenhouse.
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