Chapter 11 - BLOOD AND LOYALTY
Serena held the ring between two fingers.
Graham motioned with the gun.
“Put it on the desk.”
She obeyed.
Julian watched Evelyn.
His mother did not look frightened.
That meant she had expected Graham.
A soft click sounded beneath the desk.
Steel shutters dropped over the windows.
The library doors locked.
Evelyn smiled.
“You never learned patience.”
Graham fired at the ceiling camera.
Serena screamed and ducked.
Julian tackled Graham as the second shot struck a bookcase.
The gun skidded across the carpet.
Evelyn reached it first.
She pointed it at her son.
Julian froze.
For one terrible second, he was eight years old again, watching his mother break a wineglass because his father had disagreed with her.
“Move away from Graham,” she said.
“You’re protecting him?”
“I’m protecting the evidence in his head.”
Graham laughed from the floor.
“She needs my account passwords.”
Serena stood slowly.
“Mom trusted you,” she told him.
“Mom trusted money.”
“And I trusted you.”
“That was your mistake.”
Evelyn ordered Julian to unlock the corporate emergency account and reverse the offshore transfer into a holding company she controlled.
“If you refuse,” she said, “Rachel will be charged, your restaurants will collapse, and every employee you pretend to care about will lose a paycheck.”
Julian looked at the gun.
Then at the ring on the desk.
Its stone was facing the ceiling.
A tiny blue light blinked inside it.
Ortiz had not only copied the memory card.
She had placed a live transmitter beneath the setting.
Julian raised his hands.
“All right,” he said. “Tell me exactly what you did.”
Evelyn smiled, believing he had surrendered.
So she explained everything.
The fake death.
The bribed lender.
The staged restaurant scandal.
The theft.
The attack on Rachel.
When she finished, a voice came through the estate’s hidden speaker system.
“Chicago Police. Put the weapon down.”
Evelyn’s face changed.
May you like
She aimed the gun at the blinking ring.
And pulled the trigger.
