Chapter 6 - A Marriage Built on Revenge
Evelyn stared at the photograph.
Adrian took the phone.
"That's impossible."
Claire saw the image.
Her face changed.
"Sebastian."
Adrian shook his head.
"I buried him."
Claire looked at him.
"Did you see his body?"
Silence.
Adrian had not.
Sebastian had supposedly died overseas after months of failing health.
His attorneys arranged everything.
Adrian received an urn.
No viewing.
No funeral.
No body.
For a man obsessed with deception, Adrian realized he had accepted an astonishingly convenient story.
They drove to the property.
Police were informed, but Evelyn insisted on going.
The house was modest.
Nothing like Vale Manor.
Richard's car stood outside.
The door was open.
Inside, they found boxes of documents.
Richard wasn't there.
Neither was Sebastian.
But a laptop played a prerecorded video.
Richard appeared on-screen.
"If you're watching this, Evelyn, you've finally discovered that everyone around you has been lying."
She clenched her fists.
Richard continued.
"Blackwood wants you to believe I'm the villain. Perhaps I am. But ask yourself why a billionaire family spent twenty-seven years protecting the same secrets."
The screen went black.
Then another video began.
Sebastian appeared.
Older.
Without disguise.
Alive.
"Evelyn, if you are seeing this, Adrian has found you."
Adrian stepped closer.
Sebastian explained that he had staged his death.
Not to escape Adrian.
To lure Richard.
Richard believed Sebastian possessed one final ledger linking him to decades of fraud.
Sebastian wanted Richard to come looking for it.
But Adrian had unknowingly complicated everything by creating his own plan.
"He didn't know?" Evelyn asked.
Adrian looked furious.
"No."
Sebastian addressed Adrian next.
"You always believed revenge required becoming your enemy. I hoped you would learn otherwise."
Adrian turned away.
Evelyn watched him.
The mask.
The marriage.
The eighteen million.
He had built himself into a weapon.
And now he was discovering someone else had aimed him.
The video continued.
"Evelyn, the property belongs to you because Claire bought it before you were born. Richard never knew."
Evelyn looked around.
Her mother had prepared a home for her.
Before Richard stole everything.
Sebastian's final instruction was simple.
Find the blue ledger.
It contained the names of judges, bankers, attorneys, and executives who had helped Richard.
Adrian searched the house.
Nothing.
Evelyn didn't.
She looked at the old documents.
Claire had been an archivist.
Like her.
She would hide something where only someone trained to preserve paper would notice.
Evelyn examined the bookshelf.
One book had been rebound incorrectly.
She removed it.
Inside was a blue ledger.
Adrian stared.
"You found it."
"So will Richard."
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
They froze.
Adrian motioned for Evelyn to stay behind him.
They climbed the stairs.
The bedroom door was partly open.
Adrian pushed it.
Empty.
The window moved in the wind.
Then Evelyn noticed a message scratched into the wooden frame.
Three words.
NOT ADRIAN. DANIEL.
She stared at it.
Adrian came beside her.
"What?"
Evelyn turned.
Daniel was no longer downstairs.
The front door slammed.
Adrian ran to the window.
May you like
Daniel's car disappeared down the road.
And the blue ledger was gone...
