Chapter 12 - The Second Gunshot
Victoria drove her heel backward into Marcus’s shin.
He lost his balance.
Officer Brooks lunged.
A gunshot thundered.
Richard heard Victoria scream.
Then Marcus hit the floor.
The gun skidded beneath the table.
Two officers pinned him immediately.
Richard ran to Maya.
She threw herself into his arms so hard he nearly fell.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
He checked her face, arms, chest, legs.
No blood.
No wound.
Behind him, Victoria sat against the wall clutching her shoulder.
The bullet had grazed her.
She was crying.
Not elegantly.
Not carefully.
For the first time since Richard had known her, Victoria looked stripped of every layer she used to control a room.
“Richard,” she whispered.
He stared at her.
She had helped plan his daughter’s disappearance.
She had locked Ella downstairs.
She had terrorized Maya.
And then, when Marcus revealed how far the plan truly went, she had tried to run with the child.
None of those truths erased the others.
Officer Brooks crouched beside Victoria. “You’re under arrest.”
Victoria nodded once.
Her eyes stayed on Richard.
“I never wanted her dead.”
Richard’s expression did not change.
“You wanted her gone.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
Marcus shouted from the floor. “She planned it! The passport was her idea!”
Victoria snapped back, “You built the fake guardianship papers!”
Brooks said, “Save it for the interview room.”
As paramedics entered, Daniel called Richard.
“We found something in Marcus’s office.”
“What?”
“A drive.”
Richard held Maya tighter.
“What’s on it?”
“Recordings. Contracts. Payments. It goes back years.”
“How many?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Sir... Caroline’s name is in the files.”
Richard stopped moving.
His late wife had died three years earlier in a car accident on a wet highway outside Greenwich.
The official report had called it tragic, sudden, unavoidable.
His voice became almost inaudible.
May you like
“What about Caroline?”
Daniel said, “I think you need to see this yourself.”
