Chapter 13: The Last Betrayal
Michael escaped before the agents could surround the clearing.
He took Nathan’s transfer documents and Charles’s original will with him.
Without those papers, Eleanor’s attorneys could delay the board vote and challenge my baby’s inheritance for years.
Rachel issued an arrest warrant.
Michael disappeared.
For two days, Nathan recovered in the hospital while federal agents searched every property connected to the Vance family.
I stayed beside him.
Rebecca visited on the second morning.
Mother and son faced each other in silence before Nathan finally reached for her hand.
“I looked for you,” Rebecca whispered.
“I know,” Nathan said. “I found the letters.”
Eleanor had hidden hundreds of Rebecca’s letters in the blue nursery. Each one had been addressed to Charles and Nathan.
Not one had ever been delivered.
Their reunion was painful, imperfect, and real.
But we had little time to heal.
The board scheduled another emergency meeting. Eleanor’s allies intended to appoint an outside executive unless Nathan proved his ownership.
Then Mrs. Alvarez remembered something.
Weeks earlier, Michael had asked her how to access the old chapel on the Vance estate. She thought he was researching family records.
We searched the chapel after dark.
Behind the altar, we found Michael sitting beside a small safe.
He did not run.
His daughter was with him.
Eleanor’s men had held the girl for three days, forcing Michael to cooperate. Once Eleanor was arrested, Michael rescued her and came to the chapel.
He returned Charles’s will.
But the transfer documents were missing.
“I gave them to someone for safekeeping,” he said.
“Who?” Nathan demanded.
Michael looked at me.
“Claire’s father.”
I had not spoken to my father in eleven years.
Robert Bennett had walked away after my mother died, leaving me to raise myself. I believed he wanted nothing to do with me.
Michael told me the truth.
My father had secretly financed Nathan’s investigation.
He was also the largest silent investor in Vance Industries.
And he had just called an emergency shareholder vote for the following morning.
Before I could process the revelation, headlights surrounded the chapel.
Men in dark suits stepped from six black vehicles.
The rear door of the largest car opened.
My father emerged.
He looked at my stomach, then at Nathan.
May you like
“I came for my daughter,” he said.
“And I came to take the Vance empire apart.”
