CHAPTER FOUR THE ABDUCTION
I ran toward the window.
An agent grabbed my arm.
“Mrs. Sterling, stay back.”
Below us, a black vehicle tore across the east lawn without headlights.
Nora was inside.
I knew it before the security team confirmed that one of the service gates had been forced open.
A second guard was found unconscious near the old greenhouse.
The attackers had known the property.
They knew which cameras had not yet been replaced.
They knew exactly where Nora would be sitting.
Charles stood near the empty document box.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
“You were warned not to be trusted,” I said.
His expression hardened.
“You think I took her?”
“I think someone knew your agents would bring the will here.”
“They were federal investigators, not my agents.”
“And someone knew the library lights could be disabled from the west corridor.”
Charles looked toward the fireplace.
Behind the paneling was an electrical control unit that only senior estate staff knew existed.
Or family.
The head of security entered.
“We found something.”
He handed me a small earpiece recovered beneath Nora’s chair.
It was still active.
A man’s voice came through the receiver.
“Proceed to the north road. Do not stop.”
I recognized that voice.
It belonged to Adrian’s personal driver, Nathan Cole.
Nathan had worked for us for fifteen years.
He had driven me to the clinic after my collapse.
He had carried my luggage inside.
He had watched Adrian take my phone.
The agents traced the vehicle toward an abandoned Sterling Global training center thirty miles outside the city.
As tactical teams prepared to move, my phone rang.
Adrian’s name appeared on the screen.
He was supposed to be in federal custody.
Charles answered on speaker.
“How did you get access to a phone?”
Adrian ignored him.
“Evelyn, listen carefully.”
“Where is Nora?”
“Safe.”
“If you touch her—”
“I have never hurt that girl.”
“You stole her from a hospital.”
“I saved her.”
The lie came easily.
“What do you want?”
“The second will is no longer useful without Nora’s signature. Bring the original voting certificates from the vault.”
“You already took the will.”
“I did not take anything.”
Charles and I exchanged a glance.
Adrian continued.
“Someone else is controlling this now.”
“Who?”
“The person who sent Nora the package.”
His voice no longer sounded confident.
For the first time, Adrian was afraid of someone other than himself.
“Why would the person who exposed you kidnap her?”
“Because the package was not meant to save Nora. It was meant to bring all of us together.”
A noise sounded behind him.
A door opening.
Adrian lowered his voice.
“Evelyn, Samuel Whitmore is alive.”
Charles went pale.
“That is impossible.”
“No,” Adrian said. “What is impossible is that you never realized your brother was the man financing Bianca’s family.”
The call ended.
Charles remained motionless.
Samuel had been my father’s attorney.
He had drafted the second will.
He knew Nora’s existence could control the company.
And according to Adrian, he had survived the accident that supposedly killed him.
The agent in charge received a location update.
The black vehicle had stopped at the abandoned training center.
“We’re moving now.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
“No.”
“That is my daughter.”
“It may be a trap.”
“Then you should be grateful I already know the way.”
Charles caught my arm before I reached the door.
“Evelyn, if Samuel is alive, he may believe that company belongs to him.”
“Why?”
Charles looked older than he had an hour earlier.
“Because your father promised him control before you were born.”
The truth arrived in pieces.
My father and Samuel had started Sterling Global’s international division together.
Samuel expected to become chief executive.
Then my father discovered he had been diverting company funds.
He removed Samuel from the succession plan and placed everything in my trust.
Samuel had spent decades believing my family had stolen his future.
Now he had Nora.
The only person who could legally break my control.
I pulled away from Charles.
“Then your brother has waited nineteen years for tonight.”
Charles looked toward the missing will.
“No.”
May you like
His voice was nearly a whisper.
“He has waited forty-eight.”
