Chapter 6 - My Sister’s Price
I hated Madison.
I loved her.
Both things were true, and that made every decision worse.
She had slapped my pregnant wife. She had helped trap Nora in our home. She had watched our parents block the door while she demanded a signature.
But when I pictured her bleeding in some abandoned warehouse, I also saw the little girl who used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms.
Nora saw the war on my face.
“We’re going to help her,” she said.
I looked at her. “After what she did to you?”
“We’re going to help police find her. That doesn’t mean I forgive her.”
That was Nora. Clear where the rest of us were tangled.
Detective Reed refused to use Nora as bait.
Julian sent a new message anyway.
Midnight. Old Cole Biomedical plant. Bring the original trust certificate and the drive. Alone.
We didn’t have the original trust certificate.
Maya did something better.
She created a sealed evidence packet that looked like one, while police placed a tracker inside the folder.
I wore a microphone under my shirt.
At 11:58 p.m., I walked into the plant where my grandfather had started the company forty-two years earlier.
The place smelled like rust and rain.
One fluorescent tube buzzed above the production floor.
Madison sat tied to a chair beneath it.
Her left eye was swollen.
Julian stood behind her.
“So,” he said, “Arthur’s favorite grandson finally showed up.”
“Let her go.”
“Put the documents down.”
I did.
Madison looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
Julian grabbed her hair and pulled her head back.
“You’ll apologize when I’m finished.”
My hands curled into fists.
“What do you actually want?”
“Your daughter’s vote.”
“She isn’t even born.”
“That’s the beauty of old men and trusts. They make the dead more powerful than the living.”
He kicked the packet.
“Your grandfather was going to expose George and me. He thought cutting us out would fix everything.”
“Did you kill him?”
Julian smiled.
“No.”
It was the confidence in his answer that scared me.
“Then who did?”
He looked at Madison.
She started shaking her head.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Julian laughed.
“Your sister knows.”
I stared at her.
Madison began to cry.
“Ethan, Grandpa didn’t die at home like Dad told us.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
“I was there.”
Julian stepped closer to me.
“Ask her who was holding Arthur’s medication when he collapsed.”
Madison squeezed her eyes shut.
May you like
And then she said the two words that broke what was left of my family.
“Mom was.”
