Chapter 9 - THE LAST SECRET OF VICTORIA BLACKWOOD
Adrian fired first.
Samuel disappeared behind the stone wall.
Marcus dragged Victoria into cover.
Clara dropped beside her.
“Mrs. Blackwood!”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“I noticed.”
Despite everything, Clara almost laughed.
Adrian exchanged fire with Samuel.
Cole crawled toward the opposite wall.
Then another shot hit the overhead light.
Darkness swallowed the chamber.
“Clara!” Adrian shouted.
“I’m here!”
“Stay down!”
Samuel’s voice came through the dark.
“This family has spent thirty years protecting the wrong people.”
Adrian moved toward the sound.
“You murdered Thomas Bennett.”
“Yes.”
“You hunted Eleanor.”
“Yes.”
“You shot my mother.”
Samuel laughed.
“And yet somehow everyone still thinks I’m the family problem.”
“You are.”
“No, nephew. I’m simply the only Blackwood who stopped pretending.”
A flashlight flickered.
Marcus fired.
Samuel fired back.
Marcus fell.
“Marcus!”
Clara crawled toward him.
“I’m all right,” he groaned.
The bullet had struck his leg.
Adrian moved deeper into the chamber.
Samuel spoke again.
“Ask Victoria why Daniel Mercer was really kept hidden.”
Clara froze.
Victoria whispered, “Don’t listen.”
“Ask her!”
Clara looked toward Victoria.
“Why?”
Victoria shook her head.
Samuel laughed.
“Because Daniel wasn’t only hiding from me.”
Adrian found Samuel’s position.
He moved silently.
Samuel continued.
“He was hiding from Richard.”
Clara stared.
“Richard knew he survived?”
“Oh yes.”
Victoria began crying.
“Samuel, stop.”
“Richard wanted Mercer dead because Mercer knew his greatest secret.”
Adrian struck Samuel from the side.
The gun flew away.
They crashed against the vault door.
Samuel drove his elbow into Adrian’s ribs.
Adrian punched him twice.
Samuel fell.
Adrian kicked the gun away.
“It’s over.”
Samuel smiled through blood.
“No.”
He looked at Victoria.
“Tell him.”
Adrian turned.
“Tell me what?”
Victoria looked at her son.
For the first time, Adrian saw not the Blackwood matriarch.
Not the woman who survived Richard.
Just his mother.
Terrified.
“Your father didn’t build the legitimate businesses you inherited.”
Adrian frowned.
“What?”
“Daniel did.”
Clara looked toward her father’s files.
Victoria continued.
“Before Daniel became a federal prosecutor, his family owned a logistics company. Richard forced them out through threats and fraudulent loans. He used their infrastructure to build Blackwood Shipping.”
Adrian felt nauseated.
“The company that funded everything else.”
“Yes.”
“The legal empire.”
“Yes.”
“It was stolen.”
“Yes.”
Samuel laughed.
“There’s your inheritance.”
Adrian looked around the archive.
Hotels.
Warehouses.
Real estate.
Security companies.
Everything he believed he had transformed into something legitimate had grown from theft.
Clara watched him carefully.
Samuel spoke.
“You know what happens if those records become public? Lawsuits. Seizures. Investigations. Your empire disappears.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Then it disappears.”
Samuel stopped smiling.
Victoria whispered, “Adrian.”
He turned toward her.
“You spent your life protecting me from consequences that belonged to this family.”
“I wanted you to have a life.”
“I do.”
He looked at Clara.
“But not if someone else had to lose theirs to pay for it.”
Clara’s eyes filled with tears.
Adrian picked up Samuel’s gun.
Samuel tensed.
Adrian removed the magazine and threw both pieces away.
“No more.”
He called the authorities.
Not private security.
Not family contacts.
Federal authorities.
Samuel stared at him.
“You’ll destroy your own name.”
Adrian answered calmly.
“Maybe it needs to be destroyed before it can mean something different.”
Samuel was arrested before dawn.
So was Cole, although Adrian promised to testify that he had eventually cooperated.
Marcus went to surgery.
Victoria returned home.
But everyone knew the larger battle had only begun.
Three days later, Daniel was strong enough to speak.
Clara sat beside him.
Victoria asked to join them.
Clara almost refused.
Then Daniel said, “Let her.”
Victoria entered.
The two old survivors stared at each other.
Daniel spoke first.
“You look terrible.”
Victoria laughed weakly.
“So do you.”
Clara stared at them.
“You’ve spoken before.”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
Clara stood.
“You knew too?”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“Victoria found me.”
“And neither of you told me.”
“I wanted to.”
“But?”
“Samuel was watching you.”
Clara closed her eyes.
Again.
Protection.
Secrets.
Lies.
Daniel reached toward her.
“I made the mistake of believing distance could keep you safe. I lost twenty-six years because of that mistake.”
Clara looked at him.
“I don’t know how to forgive that.”
“You don’t have to today.”
That answer surprised her.
Daniel continued.
“If you give me tomorrow, I’ll take tomorrow.”
Clara slowly sat.
“And after that?”
“I’ll ask for another day.”
She took his hand.
Victoria watched them, crying silently.
Later that evening, Adrian found his mother on the terrace.
Wrapped in blankets.
Snow covered the gardens.
“How long?” she asked.
Adrian knew what she meant.
“The doctor says days.”
Victoria nodded.
“I’m tired.”
He sat beside her.
“I know.”
“I need you to promise me something.”
“No more secrets?”
She smiled.
“That too.”
“What?”
“Don’t become your father because you’re afraid of losing people.”
Adrian looked away.
“I’m not him.”
“No. But fear makes men resemble people they hate.”
She touched his face.
“You love Clara.”
Adrian did not answer.
Victoria smiled.
“You always were terrible at this part.”
“She may leave.”
“Yes.”
“She may hate this family.”
“She has reasons.”
“I can’t fix what happened.”
“No.”
Victoria looked toward the mansion.
“But you can decide what happens next.”
That night, Victoria asked everyone to have dinner together.
Adrian.
Clara.
Daniel in a wheelchair.
Marcus on crutches.
Even the nurses.
For the first time in months, the enormous dining room felt alive.
Victoria barely ate.
But she laughed.
She told embarrassing stories about Adrian as a child.
Clara laughed so hard she cried.
Adrian threatened to cancel dessert.
Victoria threatened to rewrite her will.
For two hours, death waited outside.
After dinner, Clara helped Victoria to bed.
Just like the rainy evening when Adrian first saw them together.
Victoria held Clara’s hand.
“You came here looking for revenge.”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
Clara looked toward Adrian standing in the doorway.
“The truth.”
Victoria smiled.
“Sometimes that’s more expensive.”
Her eyes closed.
Clara waited.
Then Victoria whispered one last thing.
“Adrian.”
He came closer.
She placed Clara’s hand into his.
“Stay.”
Nobody knew whether she was speaking to him or Clara.
Maybe both.
Victoria Blackwood died before sunrise.
Her son on one side.
The young maid she had come to love on the other.
But when Adrian returned from his mother’s funeral three days later, the mansion was silent again.
Clara’s room was empty.
May you like
On her bed lay her housekeeping uniform.
And beside it was a letter addressed to Adrian.
