Chapter 14 - The Fall

Victoria caught Lily.

Both of them crashed onto the concrete.

Grace scrambled down the stairs, ignoring the fire in her shoulder.

"Lily!"

Her daughter was crying.

Crying meant breathing.

Grace pulled her into her arms.

Victoria lay beside them, stunned, blood running from a cut above her eyebrow.

"Is she okay?" Victoria whispered.

Grace did not answer.

Across the foundry, Nathan and Richard slammed into a workbench. The pistol skidded across the floor.

Maya kicked it away and pinned Richard's arm behind his back.

"Richard Ashford, do not move."

Police sirens rose outside. Maya had called them before entering.

Richard laughed while officers dragged him upright.

"You think this ends with me?"

Nathan wiped blood from his lip. "It starts with you."

Richard looked at Margaret, who had arrived with police.

"Ask your mother who signed the second ledger."

Everyone went still.

Margaret's face collapsed.

Richard smiled.

"There it is."

Grace held Lily tighter.

Nathan stared at his mother.

"What is he talking about?"

Margaret could barely speak. "Nathan—"

"Who signed it?"

She looked at the floor.

"I did."

Nathan stepped back.

Margaret began crying. "I didn't know the companies were fake. Your father told me the signatures were temporary authorizations for emergency projects. I signed twelve transfers. By the time Ethan showed me what they really were, millions had already moved."

"So Ethan had proof against you too."

"Yes."

Grace understood before Nathan did.

"That's why you hid my marriage."

Margaret nodded.

"If Ethan's widow inherited his shares, you would have had the power to demand an audit. I thought Richard would expose my signatures, destroy the company, and send me to prison."

Nathan's voice sounded hollow. "So you chose yourself."

Margaret whispered, "Yes."

Lily looked up at Nathan.

"Is Grandma bad?"

No one answered.

Then Maya walked over holding the recipe box recovered from Richard's SUV.

"We found this."

Grace opened it.

Beneath handwritten recipes was a false bottom.

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Inside lay a black ledger.

And one sealed letter addressed to Nathan.