CHAPTER 14: ADRIAN’S FINAL GAME
Emma tried to dismiss Thomas’s warning as another attempt to frighten her.
Then Adrian requested a meeting.
He claimed he had information about a person still working inside Richard’s company.
Emma agreed to see him only after Detective Ortiz arranged a monitored prison interview.
Adrian entered the room wearing a gray uniform and handcuffs.
For the first time since his conviction, Emma saw him without expensive clothing, servants, or power.
He looked smaller.
But his eyes had not changed.
“You look well,” he said.
Emma remained standing.
“What do you want?”
“To help you.”
“You’ve never helped anyone unless it benefited you.”
Adrian smiled faintly.
“You finally learned.”
He told her that Thomas had placed one final operative inside the company. Someone instructed to release falsified evidence if Thomas was convicted.
The evidence would make it appear that Richard had ordered Eleanor’s disappearance eighteen years earlier.
“Who is the operative?” Emma asked.
Adrian leaned back.
“I want a transfer to a safer facility.”
“No.”
“I also want ten million dollars placed in a trust.”
“No.”
“Then your father spends the rest of his life defending himself.”
Emma moved toward the door.
Adrian’s confidence faltered.
“Wait.”
She turned.
“You still think information gives you power over me.”
“It does.”
“No. It gives you one final opportunity to do something that isn’t cruel.”
Adrian laughed.
“You believe people change?”
“No. But sometimes they reveal exactly who they are when no reward remains.”
She opened the door.
Adrian called after her.
“It’s Daniel Cross.”
Emma stopped.
Daniel was Richard’s new chief legal officer. He had joined the company after Thomas disappeared and helped uncover several fraudulent accounts.
He had also supervised the transfer of evidence to federal investigators.
Emma returned to the estate and reviewed Daniel’s history.
His credentials were perfect.
Too perfect.
Detective Ortiz discovered that Daniel Cross had legally changed his name twelve years earlier.
His birth name was Daniel Mercer.
Thomas’s son.
Daniel disappeared before agents could arrest him.
At midnight, every major news outlet received documents accusing Richard of arranging Eleanor’s imprisonment.
The signatures looked authentic.
The bank records appeared real.
Then a live video appeared online.
Daniel stood inside the Whitmore Foundation headquarters, holding a detonator.
The building was empty except for one person.
Richard.
Daniel had taken him hostage during a late-night board meeting.
“I will release the complete evidence in one hour,” Daniel announced. “Then the world will finally understand what the Whitmore family did to mine.”
Emma called him.
He answered immediately.
“You have fifty-eight minutes,” he said.
“What do you want?”
“The original records your mother hid.”
“They’ve already been entered into evidence.”
“You kept copies.”
Emma looked toward the locked cabinet in her study.
He was right.
“Bring them to the foundation,” Daniel said. “Come alone, or your father dies.”
Emma closed her eyes.
For years, men had used the people she loved to force her obedience.
Adrian.
Thomas.
Now Daniel.
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But this time, Emma would not enter the building as a victim.
She would enter with a choice.
