Chapter 7 - My Father's File
I read the file three times.
It wasn't about a disease. It was about an old spinal injury from a college racing accident I barely remembered. The neurologist had found mild nerve compression that could worsen if I suffered another major trauma.
My father had buried the report.
Not because he cared about my health.
Because disclosure would have triggered a clause in a family trust while he was still controlling the company.
Marcus read the clause on the laptop.
“If you were declared medically unable to serve for more than one hundred eighty consecutive days, voting control passed temporarily to the next qualified trustee.”
I knew who that was.
“Lauren's father.”
Marcus nodded.
Thomas Whitmore had been my father's closest business partner before a bitter split ten years ago. He died the year before Lauren and I met.
Or so I thought.
The laptop contained scanned trust amendments, private emails, and a video recorded by my father six weeks before his death.
He appeared older than I remembered, sitting at the same desk I now used upstairs.
“Vincent,” he said to the camera, “if you're seeing this, I failed to fix something I should never have created.”
My throat tightened.
He explained that Whitmore had demanded a permanent succession route into Hale Industries. My father refused. Whitmore threatened to reveal the hidden medical report and sue over the trust.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“Thomas has a daughter. Lauren. Keep her away from this family.”
Marcus and I stared at the screen.
Lauren had told me her father was a real-estate developer from Boston.
Not Thomas Whitmore.
Not my father's former partner.
Not the man named in the trust.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A man's voice said, “You finally opened H-17.”
I stood so fast the brace scraped the floor.
“Who is this?”
The man laughed quietly.
“You've been asking the wrong question, Vincent.”
“Where is Owen?”
“Alive.”
“Who are you?”
A pause.
Then: “Ask Lauren who attended her father's funeral.”
The line went dead.
Marcus looked at me.
I already knew what he was thinking.
If Thomas Whitmore was dead, someone was pretending he wasn't.
May you like
If he wasn't dead, Lauren had built our entire relationship on a lie.
Then the vault door slammed shut behind us.
