Chapter 19 - The Quarry
Grace slammed into me.
We fell behind a concrete barrier as a rifle cracked from the roof.
Police returned fire.
Everything exploded into motion.
Officers rushed the maintenance building. Adrian dragged Noah out a side door with one arm around his chest and a handgun pressed against his shoulder.
“Back up!” Adrian screamed.
I stood slowly.
“Let him go.”
Noah saw me. “Dad!”
“I’m here, buddy.”
Adrian pulled him tighter.
“You always got everything,” he said to me. “The name. The company. The son Charles actually cared about.”
“Charles didn’t care about any of us. He controlled us.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“No. It took me forty years to understand it.”
Behind Adrian, Martin slipped toward a pickup truck.
Grace saw him too.
She shouted, “Martin!”
He turned.
That moment of distraction was enough.
Noah bit Adrian’s hand.
Adrian yelled.
I ran.
He fired.
The shot hit the ground beside me. I crashed into him, wrapped both arms around Noah, and rolled behind a stack of tires.
Police tackled Adrian.
Across the yard, Martin jumped into the pickup.
Grace stood directly in its path.
“Move!” I screamed.
The truck accelerated.
At the last second Grace dove aside, but she had forced Martin to swerve. The pickup slammed through a wooden barrier and skidded toward the edge of the quarry.
Martin jumped out before it went over.
He landed hard, tried to crawl, and found six officers surrounding him.
It was over.
Or I thought it was.
Then Adrian, bleeding from the mouth, began laughing as they handcuffed him.
“You still don’t get it,” he said.
I held Noah against me.
“Get what?”
“The trust.”
Melissa arrived behind the officers, phone in hand.
Her face had gone white.
“Daniel,” she said, “he’s right.”
“What happened?”
“Someone triggered an emergency succession clause in Noah’s trust thirty minutes ago.”
“Who?”
May you like
She looked at the screen.
“According to the trust documents, you’re legally dead.”
