Chapter 9 - THE VALE INHERITANCE
Ethan switched off the light.
The basement went dark.
Footsteps moved slowly through the kitchen above.
Celeste stood beside him.
Neither spoke.
A floorboard creaked.
Then another.
Ethan picked up a heavy flashlight.
The basement door opened.
A figure appeared.
“Ethan?”
Samuel Grant.
Ethan did not lower the flashlight.
Samuel looked terrible.
His jacket was torn.
There was dried blood near his forehead from a small cut.
“Richard’s men came to my office.”
Ethan studied him.
“How did you know we were here?”
“Claire told me years ago that if everything collapsed, this was where the truth would end up.”
Samuel saw the recorder.
“You found it.”
“Part of it.”
Samuel sat down slowly.
“Claire divided the recording.”
“Why?”
“Because she trusted nobody completely.”
Ethan’s patience was gone.
“Tell me what the Vale estate has to do with Sophie.”
Samuel looked toward the stairs.
Then at Celeste.
“She stays?”
Celeste answered before Ethan could.
“I’ve already destroyed enough.”
Samuel nodded.
“Richard’s grandfather created Vale Industries.”
“When he died, control passed to Richard’s father.”
“But there was another beneficiary.”
“Richard’s older sister.”
Ethan frowned.
“I never knew he had a sister.”
“Almost nobody did.”
Samuel continued.
“Her name was Marianne Vale.”
“She left the family at nineteen.”
“She married against her father’s wishes.”
“The family cut her off publicly.”
“But Richard’s grandfather never removed her from the private inheritance.”
Ethan’s pulse quickened.
“What does that have to do with Claire?”
Samuel looked directly at him.
“Marianne Vale was Claire’s mother.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Claire had always told Ethan her parents died when she was young.
Samuel opened one of the document boxes.
Inside was a birth certificate.
Claire Morgan.
Mother, Marianne Vale Morgan.
Ethan whispered, “Richard was Claire’s uncle?”
“Half-uncle.”
“Only nine years older.”
“Claire discovered it after Sophie was born.”
Daniel entered the basement behind Samuel.
He had heard enough to understand.
Samuel continued.
“When Marianne died, her share moved to Claire.”
“When Claire died, it moved to Sophie.”
Ethan finally saw the full picture.
Richard had not merely been stealing from Ethan’s company.
He believed Sophie possessed something that should have belonged to him.
“How much is the Vale estate worth?”
Samuel looked at Sophie’s photograph sitting on the table.
“Today?”
“Close to nine hundred million dollars.”
Celeste sank into a chair.
Ethan felt anger spreading through him with frightening calm.
Richard had been Sophie’s relative.
May you like
He had known it.
And while Ethan called him brother, Richard had spent years trying to steal his daughter’s inheritance.
