Chapter 18 - The Two Mothers
Leah refused police protection until Detective Ruiz told her Caleb Voss was preparing to fly to Montreal.
Then she stopped arguing.
"He's going to my apartment."
Leah and Victoria's confrontation frightened Adrian more than the board fights.
Money could be audited.
Trusts could be litigated.
DNA could answer one narrow question with scientific certainty.
There was no test for deciding who counted as a mother after twenty-six stolen years.
Adrian feared that comforting Victoria would betray Leah.
He feared embracing Leah would punish Victoria for love that had been real even when its foundation was corrupt.
Ava told him privately that he was not responsible for making either woman's pain symmetrical.
He looked relieved and miserable at the same time.
That was when Ava understood how deeply Richard's family system had trained Adrian to manage adult emotions.
As a child, he learned when Victoria needed reassurance.
As an executive, he learned when Richard needed obedience.
As Ava's boyfriend, he learned to hide the truth because he feared losing her reaction.
Control had taught him that other people's feelings were dangerous events he had to prevent.
The healthiest thing he could do now was let both women feel whatever they felt without fixing it.
So he remained near the door.
He listened.
He did not choose a side.
And when Victoria apologized without asking to be called Mom, Adrian finally saw a version of love that did not demand immediate payment.
Ruiz nodded.
"Probably."
"There is nothing there."
"He may not know that."
Leah looked at Miles.
"The blue box."
Miles's face changed.
"You still have it?"
"Of course I have it."
Adrian looked between them.
"What blue box?"
Leah hesitated.
The old habit of withholding truth appeared even in her.
Ava saw Adrian recognize it.
Leah recognized his reaction and immediately corrected herself.
"Letters from Julian."
Adrian went still.
"My father wrote to you?"
"Every week after he found out I was pregnant."
"How many?"
"Thirty-one."
Adrian's eyes filled.
"You kept them."
"They were all I had left."
Ruiz asked,
"Anything in those letters related to Meridian?"
Leah nodded.
"Some."
"One says Richard threatened him."
"Another says Dominic was hiding money."
"And one says Julian copied the founder trust certificate before he died."
Miles stepped closer.
"Where is the copy?"
Leah looked at him.
"Behind the lining of the blue box."
Miles swore.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Ava almost laughed from exhaustion.
Every box in this family had another box hidden inside it.
Ruiz made immediate calls to Canadian authorities and airport police.
Voss's charter was stopped before departure.
He was detained on an outstanding material-witness hold connected to the burned archive truck while investigators sought broader charges.
Richard's attorney called the detention harassment.
No one cared.
Leah agreed to have the blue box secured by Canadian authorities.
Only after the calls ended did she ask to see Victoria.
The request surprised everyone.
Adrian spoke first.
"You don't have to."
Leah looked at him.
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because if I don't ask her the questions now, I will spend the rest of my life inventing answers."
Ava understood that better than anyone.
Victoria was still at the Halston house with an officer when they arrived shortly after sunrise.
The sky had turned pale gray.
Wedding flowers were still being unloaded from vans at the hotel miles away.
Ava imagined workers carrying centerpieces from a celebration that had lasted less than an hour.
She wondered what would happen to the cake.
The thought was so ordinary it almost made her cry.
Victoria waited in the library.
She stood when Leah entered.
The two women looked at each other across twenty-six years.
Neither spoke.
Adrian remained near the door.
Ava stood beside him.
Miles waited in the hall.
Ruiz allowed the conversation but warned everyone that it was not a formal interview.
Leah finally stepped forward.
"You held my son."
Victoria's face crumpled.
"Yes."
"You came into the hospital holding him."
"Yes."
"I begged you to give him back."
Victoria began crying.
"Yes."
Leah's voice shook.
"And you walked away."
Victoria covered her mouth.
"I was told you were dangerous."
Leah took another step.
"I was drugged."
"I know that now."
"I had just lost the man I loved."
"I know."
"My baby had been taken."
Victoria sobbed.
"I know."
Leah's anger sharpened.
"Stop saying you know."
Victoria lowered her hands.
Leah's eyes burned.
"You knew what Richard told you."
"You knew what you wanted to believe."
"You did not know me."
Victoria nodded.
"You're right."
Leah looked almost thrown by the admission.
"I hated you for twenty-six years."
Victoria whispered,
"You should."
"Do not tell me what I should feel."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry does not return twenty-six birthdays."
Victoria shook her head.
"No."
"Sorry does not give me his first word."
"No."
"Sorry does not let me hold him when he was sick."
Victoria started crying harder.
"No."
Leah pointed toward Adrian.
"You had all of it."
Victoria looked at him.
Her voice broke.
"And I loved every second."
Leah flinched as if struck.
Ava's heart tightened.
Victoria stepped forward but stopped before getting too close.
"I loved him selfishly."
"I loved him dishonestly."
"I loved him while knowing there was a woman somewhere whose pain I was refusing to imagine."
She looked back at Leah.
"But I did love him."
Leah's face twisted.
"I know."
The answer surprised everyone.
Leah wiped her eyes.
"That is what makes this harder."
Victoria stared at her.
"If you had been cruel to him, I could hate you cleanly."
"Miles told me you sat outside his room all night when he had pneumonia at seven."
Adrian looked down.
"He told me you learned every line of his school plays."
"He told me you kept the stupid clay turtle he made in kindergarten."
Victoria laughed through tears.
"It's in my dressing room."
Leah's mouth trembled.
"I hate that you know him."
Victoria nodded.
"I understand."
Leah looked at Adrian.
"And I am grateful someone did."
The room broke quietly.
Victoria sat down because her legs would not hold her.
Leah turned away and covered her face.
Adrian stood between them without moving toward either woman.
Ava saw his pain and understood there was no correct direction.
He finally spoke.
"I don't know what to call either of you right now."
Victoria nodded.
"You don't have to call me anything."
Leah did the same.
"Me either."
Adrian breathed out slowly.
"Thank you."
It was the first honest kindness the three of them had shared.
Then Richard destroyed it from two miles away.
Every phone in the library buzzed at once.
A breaking-news alert appeared across Ava's screen.
HALSTON CEO ACCUSES VALE FAMILY OF EXTORTION AND CORPORATE SABOTAGE.
Ava stared at the headline.
Adrian opened the live stream.
Richard stood behind a podium outside Halston headquarters.
His attorney was beside him.
Reporters crowded the sidewalk.
A banner across the broadcast read BILLION-DOLLAR FAMILY WAR ERUPTS AFTER SOCIETY WEDDING.
Richard looked composed.
He looked injured.
He looked exactly like a man who had been attacked by unreasonable people.
Ava understood why he had survived so long.
"Last night, my family became the target of a coordinated financial assault."
Ava felt anger rise.
Richard continued.
"Dominic Vale, a former business partner long presumed dead, has attempted to exploit personal relationships to seize control of Halston Consolidated."
A reporter shouted a question about the preservation order.
Richard ignored it.
"Mr. Vale concealed his identity from his own daughter and manipulated her marriage to my son."
Ava almost laughed at the inversion.
Adrian's jaw tightened.
Richard continued.
"We have evidence that funds were moved from Halston accounts through entities connected to the Sinclair and Vale families."
That part was technically true.
He left out the employee trust mechanism.
He left out his own approval.
He left out Elliot Crane.
Then Richard played the clipped audio.
Dominic's voice came through the broadcast.
Make sure he does not reach that meeting.
Do whatever you have to do.
The clip ended there.
Ava stared at the screen.
Victoria stood.
"That bastard."
It was the first time Ava had heard her swear.
Richard spoke again.
"Twenty-six years ago, Julian Cross died after challenging Dominic Vale."
"Last night, Mr. Vale returned and launched a campaign to take the company built from the aftermath of that tragedy."
Adrian turned toward Ava.
"He's making Dominic look like Julian's killer."
"And me look like the way in."
Richard saved the cruelest part for last.
"My son Adrian has been under extraordinary emotional pressure."
"I ask the public to respect his privacy while our family helps him through misinformation regarding his birth and inheritance."
Adrian laughed in disbelief.
"Our family."
Richard looked directly into the cameras.
"I love my son."
Adrian threw the phone onto the sofa.
"Turn it off."
Ava stopped the stream.
Maya called immediately.
"Do not respond publicly until we coordinate with investigators."
Ava looked at Adrian.
"He just defined the story."
"For five minutes."
"Five minutes is enough online."
Maya sighed.
"Then respond with facts we can prove without compromising the criminal investigation."
Ava opened her mother's drive index on her tablet.
She thought of Elena speaking into the camera years earlier.
She thought of Thomas recording men who believed nobody was listening.
She thought of Richard telling the world that Ava had been used to seize a company.
Then she thought of the slap.
The entire night began because Victoria believed Ava's silence was obedience.
Ava was done offering silence to powerful people.
"We're going back to headquarters."
Adrian looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because the board meets again at nine."
"And?"
"And I want every director, creditor, and employee representative in the room when we answer him."
Victoria stood.
"I'm coming."
Adrian stared at her.
"Why?"
She looked at Leah.
"Because I signed the guardianship papers."
"Because I lied about giving birth to you."
"Because I helped Richard build the version of this family he is using as a shield."
She wiped her face.
"And because I am done helping him."
Leah watched her.
"Took you long enough."
Victoria nodded.
"Yes."
Miles entered from the hall holding his phone.
His expression stopped Ava before she reached the door.
"We have another problem."
Ava almost laughed from exhaustion.
"Of course we do."
Miles looked at Adrian.
"Voss wasn't going to Montreal only for Leah's letters."
"What else?"
"He told airport police Richard paid him to carry an original audio reel out of the country."
Ava's stomach tightened.
"The original of what?"
Miles looked at Richard's live press conference frozen on the television.
"The Julian Cross crash conversation."
Adrian frowned.
"We have the microcassette."
"That is Thomas's copy."
Miles shook his head.
"Voss says Richard kept the master reel for twenty-six years."
Ava understood immediately.
A master could establish whether Thomas's copy had been edited.
It could destroy Richard's claim that the full recording was fabricated.
"Where is it now?"
Miles's face darkened.
"Voss says he gave it to Elliot Crane before he went to the airport."
Dominic's missing chief of staff.
The man who had access to Ava's digital signature.
The man who had warned Richard about the preservation order.
The man who now held the most important recording in the entire case.
Ava looked at the clock.
The board meeting was less than two hours away.
May you like
And Elliot Crane had vanished.
