CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 6
The Price of Protection
Daniel had imagined finding his mother alive.
In those fantasies, Margaret ran toward him.
She held his face, apologized, and explained that powerful men had kept her away.
Reality was quieter.
She stood beneath the harsh medical lights, gripping the doorframe as though she might fall.
Her hair was white. Her face was thin. But her eyes were the same eyes Daniel remembered watching him from the piano bench.
“Mom?”
Margaret looked at him.
Her lips trembled.
“My boy.”
Daniel crossed the room.
He stopped before touching her.
Twenty-seven years stood between them.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
Victor answered for her.
“Because Richard wouldn’t allow it.”
Richard pulled against the restraints.
“That’s a lie.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Daniel looked from one parent to the other.
“What did you do?”
Victor walked toward a control panel.
A screen activated on the wall.
Security footage appeared from twenty-seven years earlier.
Margaret stood inside the Brooks greenhouse with Richard.
The video had sound.
“You can’t tell Daniel,” Richard said.
“He deserves to know who his father is,” Margaret replied.
“If Victor claims him, he’ll use the boy.”
“He already knows.”
Richard grabbed her shoulders.
“Then we leave tonight.”
“You can’t leave the company.”
“I can leave everything.”
Margaret began crying.
The footage ended.
Victor smiled.
“Richard wants you to believe he was the hero.”
Daniel looked at Richard.
“Were you?”
“No,” Richard said. “But neither was he.”
Victor played another recording.
Margaret sat in the Nevada motel room. Samuel and Thomas entered. Richard was not present.
Thomas handed her a passport.
Samuel said, “Richard agreed. You disappear, and Victor leaves Daniel alone.”
Margaret stared at the document.
“He promised to come with me.”
Samuel looked away.
“He changed his mind.”
The video stopped.
Daniel turned toward Richard.
“Did you?”
Richard’s voice was low.
“No. I never sent Samuel.”
Victor laughed.
“Convenient.”
Margaret moved closer.
“I believed you abandoned me.”
“I searched for you.”
“You stopped.”
“Because Victor sent me photographs of Daniel with a rifle pointed at him.”
Daniel felt sick.
Richard continued.
“Every time I came close, he threatened one of you.”
Victor spread his hands.
“And yet everyone survived.”
Emily had not.
Daniel looked at him.
“You killed my wife.”
Victor’s smile disappeared.
“Emily was warned.”
“That’s not a denial.”
“She entered a war she didn’t understand.”
Richard shouted, “You replaced her brakes.”
Samuel stepped forward.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
Samuel’s face had lost its practiced calm.
“I did.”
Daniel moved toward him.
Samuel raised a gun.
“I was supposed to frighten her. Victor wanted the evidence. I didn’t know the car would go over the cliff.”
“You removed her brakes.”
“I damaged the line. She was supposed to stop driving when the warning light appeared.”
Daniel lunged.
Victor’s guards entered from both sides and restrained him.
Samuel looked ill.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel struggled.
“You don’t get to say that.”
Victor turned to Richard.
“Now we reach the reason for tonight.”
He placed legal documents on a table.
“Richard was going to transfer Brooks International to Daniel. Instead, he will sign it over to me.”
Richard laughed weakly.
“You still don’t understand.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“The company is already gone.”
Silence filled the room.
Richard looked at Daniel.
“I transferred the assets three days ago.”
“To whom?” Victor demanded.
“A trust.”
“What trust?”
Richard smiled through the pain.
“Emily’s.”
Daniel stared at him.
Richard continued.
“Emily discovered the company’s hidden accounts. Before she died, she created a trust that would seize every Brooks asset if evidence linked Victor or Samuel to her death.”
Samuel’s face went white.
Richard nodded toward Daniel.
“The USB activated it.”
Victor looked toward Natalie.
She stood near the entrance, holding Eleanor’s gun.
“The drive was connected to an offline computer,” Victor said.
Natalie shook her head.
“The computer transmitted through the building’s emergency system.”
Daniel understood.
The screening room had been bait in more ways than one.
Opening the USB had triggered the transfer.
Victor’s control disappeared.
So did the company he had spent decades trying to reclaim.
Victor drew a pistol.
He aimed it at Daniel.
Richard shouted.
Margaret stepped between them.
The gun fired.
She collapsed.
Chaos erupted.
Natalie shot one guard in the leg. Daniel broke free and tackled Victor. Samuel fled toward the rear exit.
Richard knocked his chair sideways, bringing another guard down with him.
Daniel and Victor crashed into the control panel.
Victor was older but stronger than Daniel expected. He struck Daniel across the face and reached for the fallen gun.
Daniel grabbed his wrist.
“You were never my father,” Daniel said.
Victor smiled.
“Blood says otherwise.”
“Blood is the least important thing Richard gave me.”
Daniel drove Victor’s hand against the floor until the gun released.
Police sirens approached.
Natalie had activated the facility alarm before entering.
Victor looked toward the windows.
For the first time, fear entered his face.
Margaret lay bleeding near Richard.
Daniel rushed to her.
The bullet had struck below her ribs.
She looked up at him.
“I wanted to come home.”
Daniel held her hand.
“Then stay.”
Her fingers tightened weakly.
“There is one more file.”
“On the USB?”
“No.”
She looked toward Richard.
“In Emily’s house.”
“What file?”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
“The one proving Richard knew she was going to die.”
Daniel looked at his father.
Richard’s expression changed.
Not guilt.
Something worse.
Recognition.
