Chapter 5 - The Vanishing Manager
Adrian didn't waste a single second. "Marcus, take Rosa and Emily to the central panic room inside the main house immediately. Lock the steel doors from the inside."
"Understood, Boss!" Marcus replied, pulling his weapon and guiding Rosa and Emily out through the secure rear exit.
Adrian strode across the dark, rain-swept courtyard toward the mansion's east wing, his black suit jacket absorbing the downpour, his gun held low at his side. Security guards were running across the manicured lawns, their flashlights cutting beams through the misty darkness.
He reached the ground-floor guest suite in the east wing. The heavy oak door was splintered near the lock. Inside, two Blackwell security enforcers lay on the carpet, unconscious but breathing.
The floor-to-ceiling glass window leading out to the rear gardens was shattered into a thousand glittering pieces. Harrison Cole was nowhere to be seen.
Adrian stepped over the broken glass into the garden, his sharp eyes scanning the muddy ground. Fresh boot prints led through the manicured flowerbeds toward the old Victorian greenhouse at the far edge of the estate grounds.
He pulled his phone and dialed his head of surveillance. "Check the greenhouse camera feed."
"The feed went dark two minutes ago, Mr. Blackwell," the technician reported over the line. "Someone cut the power line to the outer structures."
Adrian walked purposefully through the rain toward the silhouette of the massive glass greenhouse.
Inside the dark structure, the air was warm, thick with the scent of wet soil and damp orchids. Rain pattered loudly against the glass dome above.
Adrian moved through the shadows with silent, predatory grace, his weapon raised, his senses heightened.
A soft, frantic shuffling sound came from the rear potting shed.
Adrian stepped around a tall display of fern plants, pointing his flashlight directly into the shadows.
Cornered against a wooden workbench was Harrison Cole. The estate manager was covered in mud, holding a small black leather lockbox against his chest, his eyes wide with absolute panic.
"Don't shoot! Please, Mr. Blackwell! Don't shoot!" Harrison shrieked, dropping to his knees on the gravel floor.
"Who opened your door, Harrison?" Adrian asked, his voice low, steady, and terrifyingly calm.
"It was Caleb!" Harrison wept, tears mixing with the rainwater dripping from his face. "He came in through the garden window with a key! He told me that if I didn't take this lockbox and run to the river gate where Vance’s men were waiting, he would kill my family!"
"What is in the box, Harrison?"
Harrison looked down at the black leather box in his hands, his fingers trembling. "It’s... it’s the master ledger, sir. The real one. The one that proves Caleb has been transferring Blackwell assets to the Moretti family for three years... and it contains the medical report from the night your father died."
Adrian’s breath hitched slightly in his chest. "My father's medical report?"
"Your father didn't die of a heart attack, Adrian," a smooth, arrogant voice echoed from the entrance of the greenhouse.
Adrian turned around slowly.
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Standing at the end of the glass aisle, silhouetted against the dark rain outside, was Caleb Blackwell. He held a sleek black pistol in his hand, his charming smile completely gone, replaced by a cold, murderous sneer.
"He died because I put two hundred milligrams of digitalis into his evening tea," Caleb said quietly, his voice echoing under the glass dome.
