Chapter 11 - Catherine Came Back With a Different Enemy

Catherine refused a hospital until a private physician examined her inside the house.

The cut on her arm required twelve stitches. Her bruised cheek came from being struck against a car door. The blood found in her abandoned vehicle was hers.

She had escaped because Mercer made a mistake.

“He thought the sedative worked faster than it did,” she said.

They sat in Adrian’s library after Sophie finally fell asleep upstairs with Lena nearby and Maria in the next room.

Dimitri recorded with Catherine’s permission.

“Start with the board member,” Adrian said.

Catherine looked exhausted.

“Naomi Vale.”

The name was familiar.

Naomi had chaired several charitable projects with Victor and served as vice chair of the Elise Cross Memorial Trust. She was a respected philanthropic attorney who had spent years cultivating a public reputation for protecting children.

“She knew Sophie existed?” Maria asked.

“For at least four years.”

“Why didn’t she expose Victor?”

“Because she was making money too.”

Catherine explained that Victor’s network had fractured recently. The seven-year transfer would give the trust board control of assets worth hundreds of millions. Victor intended to consolidate the funds under entities he controlled.

Naomi learned he planned to cut other board members out.

“She wanted the Harbor List,” Catherine said. “Not to expose him. To replace him.”

Adrian leaned back.

This was better than a single villain and worse than he wanted.

“How did Mercer fit?”

“He started with Victor. Now he sells himself to whoever pays.”

“Why attack you?”

“I told Naomi I had copies of Elise’s files.”

“You did?”

“I lied.”

Maria almost smiled.

Catherine’s mouth twitched despite the pain. “I thought I could draw her out.”

“You left Sophie alone to do that,” Adrian said.

The smile vanished.

“I left her at the safest school I knew.”

“You disappeared without telling her.”

“I know.”

The words cracked.

Adrian stopped.

Catherine looked toward the ceiling, as if Sophie could hear through two floors.

“I spent six years telling myself every lie was protection. Eventually I couldn’t tell where protection ended and control began.”

Maria said quietly, “That happens when fear becomes a habit.”

Catherine looked at her.

Adrian did too.

The sentence belonged to more than one person in the room.

Catherine described the attack. Mercer intercepted her outside a motel near Racine. He demanded the Harbor List and the star necklace. Catherine convinced him the necklace was hidden in Chicago. During the drive, she used a broken seat-belt latch to cut her arm free, kicked open the rear door at a traffic light, and ran into a marina.

A retired couple hid her on their boat overnight.

She left the car because she believed Mercer had placed a tracker on it.

“Why wait three days to contact anyone?” Adrian asked.

“Because I still didn’t trust you.”

He accepted that too.

“What changed?”

Catherine looked at him for a long moment.

“Sophie called me.”

Adrian frowned.

“She told me you admitted you had frightened Elise. She said you didn’t blame anyone else for that.”

Catherine’s eyes filled.

“Elise spent years begging you to understand that fear doesn’t become less real because you think you had a good reason for causing it.”

The room went quiet.

Adrian turned toward the dark window.

He had spent six years wanting Elise alive so he could tell her he had been wrong.

Now Catherine had brought him the closest thing he would ever receive to an answer.

Dimitri broke the silence.

“Naomi Vale needs to know we have the Harbor List.”

Adrian looked back.

“She already knows we opened the locker.”

“Yes. But she doesn’t know we opened the encrypted volume.”

Maria understood first.

“You want to make her move.”

Dimitri nodded.

They created a false document showing only a partial recovery. It suggested the Harbor List was incomplete and that one physical backup remained.

Catherine volunteered to make the contact.

Adrian refused.

“You’re injured.”

“It’s my mess too.”

“Sophie needs you here.”

That ended the argument.

Instead, the retired federal agent sent information through a channel Naomi’s lawyers were certain to monitor.

By morning, Naomi reacted.

Her office filed a petition demanding independent custody of all recovered trust records.

At the same time, one of her assistants booked a flight to Panama.

Prosecutors obtained an emergency warrant.

The assistant was stopped at O’Hare carrying two encrypted drives and forty thousand dollars in cash.

One drive contained trust accounting.

The second contained communications with Mercer.

In one message, Naomi wrote:

Hale cannot survive discovery. If he falls, we separate the child issue from us and let him carry it.

Mercer replied:

What about Bell?

Naomi answered:

Recover the list. No unnecessary bodies.

Catherine read the message twice.

“Mercer ignored that last part.”

Adrian’s phone rang.

The state investigator.

They had arrested Mercer at a motel near the Indiana border.

He was carrying a passport, cash, and a photograph of Sophie.

But the investigator’s real news was different.

Mercer had requested counsel.

Not Victor’s counsel.

A federal public defender.

And through that lawyer, he had offered to turn over six years of original recordings.

“He says Victor recorded everything,” the investigator told Adrian. “Because Victor never trusted anyone, including his own partners.”

Adrian looked at Catherine.

“Where are the recordings?”

The investigator paused.

“In a safe inside Hale Legal’s Chicago office.”

Adrian almost laughed.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

Victor had spent six years building protection from betrayal.

Now his own precautions had become evidence.