Chapter 11 - Victoria’s Version
Victoria laughed.
It sounded almost normal.
“That is what you’re doing now?” she asked Charles. “You’re giving me to the police?”
Charles’s face crumpled. “I protected you for three years.”
“Protected me?”
“I fixed the cameras. I paid Bell to disappear. I kept Michael from reopening the case.”
Ethan stared at his father. “You paid Thomas?”
Thomas shook his head. “He tried. I took the money because I needed him to think I was gone.”
Victoria stepped toward Charles. “Tell them the rest.”
He looked away.
“Tell them!”
Ortiz moved between them.
Victoria’s voice shook. “Anna was blackmailing us.”
Claire said, “She was exposing theft.”
“She wanted control of the trust.”
“For Lily.”
“She knew Lily was Ethan’s daughter. She knew Margaret’s trust gave a direct biological grandchild a protected voting share. She was going to use that child to take the foundation.”
Ethan’s anger hardened. “The foundation you were stealing from.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed. “I kept this family functioning while you ran around building your precious tech company. I handled donors. I handled Father. I handled Michael. And then Anna decided she was morally superior to all of us.”
“So you brought a gun?” Ortiz asked.
Victoria’s face went still.
Charles whispered, “It was mine.”
Every head turned.
“I kept it in my desk. Victoria took it.”
Victoria snapped, “I took it because Anna had threatened to run with Lily.”
Claire felt disgust rise in her throat. “So you scared a woman onto a balcony.”
“I never meant for her to fall.”
“But you watched.”
Victoria said nothing.
Thomas spoke from his chair. “That’s why I disappeared. I knew Charles could bury me.”
Ethan looked at his father. “And Michael?”
Charles’s face changed again.
Lily stood beside Ethan holding his hand.
“Don’t,” Claire whispered. “Not in front of her.”
But Lily heard the name.
“My daddy?”
Ethan crouched. “Sweetheart, go with Claire for a minute.”
Lily shook her head. “No more secrets.”
The words stunned everyone.
Charles started crying.
“Michael found Anna’s backup files ten months after she died,” he said. “He called me from the highway. He said he was going to the FBI.”
Ethan’s face emptied.
“What happened to him?”
Charles whispered, “I called Victoria.”
May you like
Victoria took one step back.
“And thirty minutes later,” Charles said, “Michael’s brakes failed.”
