CHAPTER 6 — ELAINE’S WARNING
Khloe demanded to speak with Marcus alone.
He entered the room slowly.
She held Elaine’s photograph in one hand.
“What did you know?”
Marcus read the words on the back.
“I don’t know what she meant.”
“Do not lie to me again.”
“I knew my father was trying to prevent the trustee meeting.”
“How?”
“He asked me to delay it.”
“Why?”
“He said the transfer would destroy the company.”
“Did you agree?”
“I agreed to speak with the trustees the next morning.”
“After the gala.”
“Yes.”
“After midnight.”
Marcus understood what she was suggesting.
“I did not know he planned to trap you in that suite.”
“But you knew he needed me to miss the meeting.”
“Yes.”
Khloe looked away.
Every new truth seemed to reveal another hidden room inside her marriage.
“You protected your father.”
“I thought I was protecting the employees.”
“You were protecting an empire built with my father’s money.”
“I didn’t know about the fifty-one percent.”
“Would it have mattered?”
Marcus could not answer quickly enough.
Khloe pressed the nurse call button.
“You should leave.”
Before Marcus reached the door, his phone rang.
It was an unknown number.
He answered on speaker.
Elaine whispered from the other end.
“Do not tell security you heard from me.”
“Elaine, where are you?”
“They took me from the stairwell. I escaped.”
“Who?”
“The head of hospital security and another man.”
Marcus looked toward Adrian.
“Where are you now?”
“I’m near the old ambulance entrance.”
Adrian sent police officers to find her.
Elaine continued speaking.
“I recorded Richard earlier tonight. He told Isabella the baby could never be born before the trustees signed.”
Khloe’s face went still.
“Do you still have the recording?”
“Yes.”
A loud sound interrupted the call.
Elaine gasped.
Then the line went dead.
Police found her ten minutes later hiding inside an empty ambulance.
She was injured but conscious.
The audio recording remained on a device hidden inside her dress.
Adrian played it for Khloe and Marcus.
Richard’s voice said, “Once the trust remains inactive, Marcus keeps everything.”
Then Isabella asked, “And Khloe?”
Richard replied, “My son has already agreed she cannot know what we are doing.”
A second male voice followed.
Marcus’s voice.
“She can never find out.”
Khloe stared at her husband.
Marcus did not deny that the voice belonged to him.
May you like
Instead, he said something even more disturbing.
“That conversation happened six months ago.”
