Chapter 9 - WHAT MY FATHER REALLY LEFT ME
Thomas smiled.
“You've made this unnecessarily difficult.”
Mason stepped in front of me.
Thomas laughed.
“You always were predictable.”
“Put the gun down.”
“You don't understand, Mason.”
Thomas looked at me.
“Your father didn't build that trust to protect you.”
I said nothing.
“He built it to hide something.”
“What?”
Thomas's smile disappeared.
“The company was never worth eighty-four million.”
I frowned.
“It was worth much more.”
He pulled out a folder.
“Your father had secretly acquired assets worth over two hundred million dollars.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because he knew Victor would come.”
“And you?”
“I was supposed to manage everything.”
“For Victor?”
Thomas nodded.
“But your father changed the plan.”
“How?”
“He removed me.”
“Why?”
“Because he discovered I was the one feeding Victor information.”
I understood.
Thomas had been the leak.
The forged documents.
The fake marriage.
The medication authorization.
The financial transfers.
All of it.
“Then why involve Mason?”
“Because Mason was the perfect scapegoat.”
Thomas smiled.
“He was already emotionally distant. He had a reputation for being difficult. People would believe anything about him.”
I looked at Mason.
Thomas continued.
“And you?”
“I was supposed to become desperate enough to activate the trust.”
“You underestimated me.”
“No.”
Thomas smiled.
“I underestimated your father.”
He pointed the gun toward the folder.
“He left one final instruction.”
My father's handwriting appeared on the page.
The trust belongs to Elizabeth only when she chooses herself.
I stared at it.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas looked annoyed.
“I never figured it out.”
Callahan suddenly smiled.
“I did.”
Everyone looked at him.
“The trust wasn't financial protection.”
He turned to me.
“It was a test.”
“What?”
“Your father knew money could corrupt everyone around you.”
He explained the final clause.
The trust would fully transfer only if I rejected every claim against Mason, Victor, and the Ross family and independently assumed control through an external board.
I laughed.
“My father made me solve a puzzle after he died?”
Callahan smiled.
“He knew you.”
Thomas's expression darkened.
“Enough.”
He raised the gun.
Mason moved.
The shot exploded.
Mason fell.
“Mason!”
I ran toward him.
Blood spread across his shirt.
He grabbed my wrist.
“I'm okay.”
“You've been shot!”
“It's my shoulder.”
Thomas tried to escape.
Sabrina tackled him.
Clara locked the door.
Callahan called the police.
Within minutes, the room filled with officers.
Thomas was arrested.
Victor was arrested two days later after an international warrant was issued.
But I wasn't finished.
I wanted answers about Daisy.
The investigation revealed the truth.
The medication had been approved.
The pharmacy authorization had been deliberately altered.
The delay had been engineered.
Daisy's death was the result of criminal interference.
But the doctors also confirmed something that changed me forever.
Even if the medication had arrived, Daisy's condition had been extremely severe.
There was no guarantee she would have survived.
That didn't excuse what happened.
But it meant I no longer had to spend the rest of my life wondering whether one signature alone had stolen my daughter.
I could finally grieve her without drowning in guilt.
Mason recovered.
Three weeks later, we stood beside Daisy's grave.
The winter wind moved through the trees.
Mason placed a small stuffed bird beside the flowers.
“I never got to say goodbye.”
I looked at him.
“You can now.”
He knelt.
“I am sorry, Daisy.”
His voice broke.
“I should have been there.”
I cried beside him.
Not because everything was fixed.
It wasn't.
Some wounds don't disappear.
They become scars.
But for the first time, we were grieving the same person instead of fighting each other.
Mason reached for my hand.
I let him.
Then my phone rang.
Callahan.
“Elizabeth.”
“What happened?”
“We found another file.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind?”
“Your father's final account.”
“What's in it?”
Callahan hesitated.
“There is a second trust.”
I looked at Mason.
“For whom?”
Callahan's voice dropped.
“For a child.”
My heart stopped.
“What child?”
“I don't know.”
May you like
Then he said:
“The beneficiary's name is not Daisy.”
