Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO BETRAYED ME SAVES MY LIFEThe first bullet struck the wall behind my head.
Marcus pulled me down.
Rebecca returned fire through the broken window.
Julian crawled toward the kitchen.
Chloe froze.
“Move!” I screamed.
That snapped her back.
We scrambled into the hallway.
Another shot punched through the front door.
Rebecca shouted into her radio.
“Federal agent under attack! Multiple shooters!”
Outside, tires squealed.
A second vehicle arrived.
Then gunfire erupted from the rear of the house.
“They’re covering both exits,” Marcus said.
Rebecca looked toward the basement.
“Downstairs.”
We moved.
I reached the basement door first.
Julian grabbed my wrist.
“Wait.”
I spun.
“What?”
“There’s another way.”
“How would you know?”
“Mercer used safe houses like this.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“You’ve been here?”
“No. Same design.”
He pointed toward the pantry wall.
“Utility corridor.”
Marcus shoved aside shelving.
Behind it was a narrow service passage.
We entered single file.
The corridor led through old utility pipes toward a detached garage.
Halfway through, I heard the basement door crash open behind us.
“They’re inside,” Chloe whispered.
Marcus pushed us faster.
We emerged into the garage.
A black SUV sat inside.
Rebecca found keys hanging near a workbench.
“Get in.”
We piled inside.
Marcus drove.
Rebecca rode shotgun.
Julian, Chloe, and I sat in back.
As the garage door opened, headlights appeared at the end of the alley.
A vehicle accelerated toward us.
“Go!” Rebecca shouted.
Marcus hit the gas.
We shot into the alley.
The pursuing SUV followed.
Another appeared behind it.
Chicago suburbs blurred past.
Marcus drove like a man twenty years younger.
Our pursuers stayed close.
Then Chloe screamed:
“They’re beside us!”
A dark sedan pulled parallel.
The rear window lowered.
I saw the gun.
Before I could react, Chloe threw herself across me.
Glass exploded.
She jerked violently.
The sedan sped ahead.
I looked down.
Blood spread across Chloe’s shoulder.
“Chloe!”
She gasped.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Julian stared at her.
“Why did you do that?”
Chloe looked at him.
Not me.
At him.
And laughed weakly.
“Because apparently one of us needed to become human.”
His face collapsed.
Marcus reached an intersection.
Rebecca pointed.
“Left!”
We turned.
Sirens approached.
The attackers vanished.
Ten minutes later, Chloe was inside an emergency trauma center under federal protection.
The bullet had passed through her shoulder.
Painful.
Bloody.
But survivable.
I stood outside the treatment room.
Julian sat nearby, handcuffed now.
Rebecca had decided cooperation was no longer optional.
“You’re placing me under arrest?” he demanded.
“I’m detaining you while we determine how much of this you helped arrange.”
“I brought evidence.”
“You also conspired to steal your wife’s company.”
He had no answer.
I watched through the glass as doctors worked on Chloe.
Part of me hated her.
She had slept with my husband.
Helped steal from me.
Participated in forged documents.
Allowed Julian to believe I was helpless.
Another part remembered her throwing herself between me and a bullet.
Human beings were inconveniently complicated.
By morning, federal agents had seized several Blackwell-linked accounts.
But Mercer was gone.
So was Richard Blackwell.
Blackwell Global issued a public statement denying wrongdoing.
Sterling shares fell fourteen percent before noon.
Reporters gathered outside the hospital.
Rumors exploded online.
STERLING CEO MISSING FROM PUBLIC VIEW
CORPORATE COUP?
BLACKWELL DEAL IN JEOPARDY
I watched from a secured room.
Rebecca entered.
“We examined Chloe’s flash drive.”
“And?”
“It’s enough for fraud.”
“Murder?”
“Not yet.”
I clenched my jaw.
“What about the recording?”
“Useful, but Mercer’s language is indirect.”
“He said accidents happen twice.”
“A defense attorney will call it metaphor.”
“So we need him admitting the brakes.”
“Yes.”
Julian was brought in later.
Without his expensive suit, polished confidence, and carefully styled appearance, he seemed smaller.
Rebecca removed one handcuff and secured him to the table.
I sat across from him.
“Where is Mercer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where would he go?”
“Blackwell has properties everywhere.”
“Try harder.”
He looked at me.
“I never wanted you dead.”
My laugh was cold.
“You helped drug me.”
“To get signatures.”
“You let Mercer threaten another accident.”
“I thought he was bluffing.”
“You knew someone cut my brakes.”
“Afterward.”
I leaned closer.
“You slept beside me knowing someone tried to murder me.”
His eyes dropped.
That was the answer.
“How long were you planning this?”
“The sale?”
“All of it.”
He swallowed.
“Eighteen months.”
Longer than the affair.
“Why?”
“Because Blackwell convinced me Sterling was collapsing.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
“No.”
He looked angry again.
“You don’t understand what it was like watching you make every final decision.”
“I was CEO.”
“And I was always your husband.”
“Because that’s who you were.”
He flinched.
I continued.
“You could have built your own company. You could have left. You could have asked for a divorce. Instead, you chose fraud.”
His eyes filled.
Not with remorse.
With self-pity.
“I wanted something that belonged to me.”
“So you tried to take what belonged to me.”
He looked away.
I stood.
“We’re done.”
“Victoria.”
I stopped.
“Mercer has something from your father.”
I turned.
“What?”
“A ledger.”
My father’s missing private notes.
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
“Your father documented Blackwell’s original fraud. Names. Payments. Judges. Executives.”
My pulse jumped.
“If that ledger becomes public…”
“It destroys Blackwell.”
“Where is it?”
“Mercer has been looking for it.”
“You said he has it.”
“I said he has something.”
I stared at him.
Julian lowered his voice.
“Mercer believed your father hid the actual ledger somewhere outside the company.”
Arthur’s warning letter came back to me.
My private notes are stored separately.
Where?
My father had trusted physical systems.
Not cloud storage.
Not banks.
Something outside Sterling.
Then I remembered.
Chess.
He taught me in the rooftop greenhouse.
Every Sunday morning when I was twelve.
He always used the same antique chess set.
One piece had been unusually heavy.
The white king.
I stood so fast the chair scraped.
Rebecca entered.
“What?”
“I know where my father hid the ledger.”
Three hours later, under FBI escort, Marcus and I returned to Sterling Tower.
The greenhouse was sealed from the sniper attack.
Glass covered the floor.
Blood stains remained near the planter.
Marcus found the old chess cabinet.
Inside sat the wooden board.
Pieces still arranged from some forgotten game.
I picked up the white king.
Heavy.
Twisted the base.
It opened.
Inside was a brass key.
Not a ledger.
A key.
Engraved with one number:
317.
Marcus looked at me.
“Locker?”
“Maybe.”
Then Arthur arrived.
I hadn’t told him where we were going.
That immediately alarmed me.
“How did you know?” I asked.
He stopped.
“Rebecca told me.”
Rebecca had not.
I knew because I had specifically asked her not to.
Marcus subtly shifted closer.
Arthur saw it.
His expression changed.
“Victoria.”
“Why were your credentials used the night before my crash?”
His face went still.
“What?”
“Security logs.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you know where we were?”
“Rebecca called.”
“No, she didn’t.”
Silence.
Arthur looked toward the chess king in my hand.
And I saw recognition.
“You know what this key opens.”
He didn’t answer.
I felt something inside me break.
“Arthur.”
His shoulders lowered.
“Yes.”
Marcus moved forward.
Arthur lifted his hands.
“I never tried to hurt you.”
“Then start talking.”
He looked exhausted.
“The key opens a private deposit vault at Union Continental Bank.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because your father made me swear.”
“To protect what?”
“The real ledger.”
My breath stopped.
“Why were your credentials used?”
Arthur’s face twisted.
“Because someone stole them.”
“Who?”
He looked toward the broken greenhouse glass.
Then back at me.
“Your mother.”
I stared at him.
“My mother is dead.”
Arthur said nothing.
My skin went cold.
My mother had supposedly died in Europe when I was nine years old.
A boating accident.
No body recovered.
My father rarely spoke about it.
May you like
Arthur whispered:
“Victoria… your mother never died.”
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