Chapter 4 - GRANDMOTHER’S WATCH
“My grandmother died of a stroke.”
Nobody answered.
That was becoming a pattern.
I looked at Marcus.
“She did.”
“Her death certificate says cerebral hemorrhage.”
“Exactly.”
Adrian was reading Nathan’s messages.
“Elena.”
I hated the tone.
Careful.
Protective.
“No.”
He looked up.
“No what?”
“No softening it.”
He handed me the phone.
Nathan had been messaging Evelyn for six months.
Not Richard.
Not at first.
Evelyn had contacted him after discovering Nathan’s gambling debts.
She offered money for information.
But the messages changed over time.
Nathan began asking questions.
About Grandma Rose.
About the trust.
About why our parents had hidden her watch.
Then came a photograph.
Grandma Rose in a hospital bed.
Date stamped two days before she died.
On her wrist was the silver watch now sitting in my palm.
I enlarged the picture.
A nurse stood behind her.
Evelyn.
“She was there.”
My father had followed us to the bank.
He looked devastated.
“I didn’t know.”
I turned on him.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“You were her son.”
“And I spent half my life doing what my father told me.”
His voice cracked.
It was the first time I had ever heard that from him.
Not an excuse.
An admission.
“My father said Rose became confused after her stroke. He took control of her business interests. When she died, I inherited what he allowed me to inherit.”
“What about me?”
Dad looked at the watch.
“She left you that.”
“And you stole it.”
“I hid it.”
“From me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother found the agreement.”
That stopped me.
“Mom?”
“She found a copy inside Rose’s things. Richard came to our house three days later.”
Adrian looked up.
“How did he know?”
“I called him.”
Of course he had.
Dad continued.
“Richard told us the trust would destroy both families if it activated. He said Mercer would come after Elena. He said Adrian would lose his company.”
“And you believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
There was more honesty in that answer than I had heard from my father in years.
“Because believing him meant doing nothing.”
Dad nodded.
“Yes.”
My anger remained.
But it changed shape.
My father wasn’t the mastermind.
He was worse in a more ordinary way.
He was a coward.
And cowards could cause enormous damage while telling themselves they were preserving peace.
Marcus interrupted.
“Nathan’s inside the brunch hall with Evelyn.”
“Locked inside?”
“He locked the doors himself.”
I stared.
“Why?”
Adrian handed me another message.
Nathan to Evelyn:
NO MORE DEALS. YOU TALK TO ELENA YOURSELF.
Nathan had trapped Evelyn.
Not to hurt her.
To stop her leaving before I heard the truth.
“That idiot.”
I grabbed my coat.
Adrian moved with me.
My father stood.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Elena—”
“You can come Sunday.”
“That’s tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“And tonight?”
“Tonight I need one person in my family to stop deciding where I’m allowed to go.”
He understood.
He sat down.
For once, my father listened.
---
We reached the brunch hall twenty minutes later.
Nathan opened the service entrance.
He looked terrible.
Wrinkled tuxedo.
Bloodshot eyes.
“You look awful,” I said.
“You always know what to say.”
I slapped him.
Not hard.
Enough.
He nodded.
“I deserved that.”
“Thirty-eight thousand dollars.”
“I know.”
“You sold my address.”
“I know.”
“You could have gotten me killed.”
His face changed.
“I know.”
That answer took some of the air out of me.
Nathan wasn’t smirking now.
He looked like a forty-year-old man who had finally run out of people willing to clean up after him.
“I thought Richard wanted to watch you,” he said. “Then Mercer offered more. I was desperate.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
He looked toward the ballroom.
“That’s why I brought you here.”
Evelyn sat alone at a table beneath the dark chandeliers.
She looked older than she had on camera.
Tired.
Not frightening.
When Adrian entered, she stood.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Evelyn said, “You look like Daniel.”
Adrian’s face closed.
“You lost the right to say his name.”
Pain moved across hers.
“Probably.”
That surprised me.
No defense.
No performance.
I stepped forward.
“Did you use Nathan to get me into Adrian’s penthouse?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the trust had to activate before Richard sold his Vale shares to Mercer.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Richard is selling?”
“Monday.”
“Why?”
“Because he owes them.”
There it was.
Richard had not been protecting Vale Consolidated from Mercer.
He had been secretly financing losses through them for years.
The shipping routes Adrian refused to sell were Richard’s final collateral.
“If the trust activated first,” Evelyn said, “you and Elena would control enough shares to block him.”
I stared.
“You could have told us.”
“I tried telling your father twenty years ago.”
“And me?”
“You were twelve.”
“I’m thirty-two now.”
Evelyn looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
That mattered.
Villains made excuses.
Guilty people sometimes admitted there weren’t any.
“Why did Grandma die?”
Nathan asked.
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Rose knew Richard was stealing from the trust.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“Did Richard kill her?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
“She had a stroke. A real one.”
Nathan sagged with relief.
But Evelyn wasn’t finished.
“She survived the first stroke.”
I felt cold.
“What happened?”
“Rose wanted to speak publicly. Your grandfather refused. Charles was afraid. Your mother begged her to wait.”
“My mother?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Margaret was the last person alone with Rose before the second hemorrhage.”
Nathan whispered, “No.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“I am not saying your mother harmed her.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“She took something.”
My hand closed around the watch.
Evelyn noticed.
Her face changed.
“You have it.”
“What did Mom take?”
Evelyn walked toward me.
“The key.”
“What key?”
She held out her hand.
“The one hidden inside Rose’s watch.”
I opened the back.
The paper was still there.
But Evelyn pressed the winding stem sideways.
A tiny compartment opened.
Empty.
She looked at me.
“Margaret took it.”
“To what?”
Evelyn met my eyes.
“A storage locker at Grand Central.”
Nathan swore under his breath.
“What’s inside?”
“The one thing Richard has spent thirty-two years trying to find.”
Adrian’s voice was quiet.
“What?”
Evelyn looked at him.
May you like
“The ledger your father was carrying the night he died.”
---
