Chapter 38 - The Drive into the Storm
"Julian!" I screamed into the transponder.
Only static hissed back.
Down along the tree line half a mile back toward the logging gate, two pairs of bright headlights flared into existence, cutting through the dense mist. Engines roared in the damp night air.
They weren't coming for me here; they had used the coordinates as a diversion to pull me forty miles away from the manor.
I bolted out of the pump house, sprinting through the thorny brambles and leaping back into the Land Rover. I threw the transmission into gear, sprayed gravel twenty feet into the air, and tore down the logging road in a desperate, blind drift.
I reached for my phone on the dashboard. Zero bars.
The dashboard clock read 12:43 AM.
The highway was a blur of black asphalt and whipping pine needles. My hands clamped onto the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. Every memory of the past weeks flashed before my eyes: Lily laughing as she showed me the lighter, Nora’s tearful confession, the calm, orderly facade of the last month—all of it had been an intricate, suffocating web woven by our uncle to isolate the child.
Because the trust I had signed didn't just give Lily half the family fortune.
May you like
If both Julian and I were killed, control of the Vance conglomerate defaulted entirely to the next blood relative.
Richard.
