Chapter 7 - THE BETRAYAL INSIDE
We moved Elias again.
This time to my mother's estate in Connecticut.
Nobody trusted anyone.
Not staff.
Not drivers.
Not security.
Every person was investigated.
Then something happened that nearly destroyed us.
The family's private attorney disappeared.
So did $46 million from the trust.
At first, everyone blamed Adrian.
But the transfer had been authorized by my father's digital signature.
Dad stared at the records.
“I didn't do this.”
I believed him.
Then Rebecca found something.
The transfer had been made six months earlier.
Before the jet ski attack.
Before Julian's arrest.
Before Adrian became known to us.
Someone inside our family had been preparing the escape route for months.
We began checking old records.
One name appeared repeatedly.
My mother's financial adviser.
Thomas Bell.
He had worked for our family for nineteen years.
He had access to everything.
And he had disappeared that morning.
We found his car abandoned near a train station.
Inside was a suitcase.
A passport.
And a photograph.
The photograph showed Thomas standing beside Adrian Vale.
Twenty years earlier.
My mother sat down.
“He was with Adrian.”
Dad nodded.
“He always was.”
But then we discovered something stranger.
Thomas wasn't running away.
He was dead.
His body was found two miles away.
The cause was poisoning.
Just like the assassin at the hospital.
Adrian was eliminating his own people.
That meant something had changed.
“He's cleaning house,” my father said.
“Why?”
“Because someone is getting close.”
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I walked into the nursery.
Elias was awake.
He was staring toward the window.
A tiny red light blinked outside.
I froze.
The light disappeared.
Then appeared again.
I grabbed Elias and ran.
Security flooded the room.
We searched the grounds.
Nothing.
Then one guard found a small device attached beneath the window.
Not a camera.
A tracking beacon.
My blood ran cold.
Someone had been watching my son.
We evacuated immediately.
During the drive, my father's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man's voice said:
“You're looking in the wrong direction.”
Dad's eyes narrowed.
“Adrian.”
“No.”
The caller laughed.
“Adrian is afraid.”
Dad said nothing.
The voice continued.
“You should be too.”
“Who are you?”
“I was the first person Adrian betrayed.”
The call ended.
My father looked at me.
Then at the road.
“There's another player.”
The next morning, we received an envelope.
Inside was a photograph of my grandfather.
On the back:
ASK HIM WHAT HAPPENED AT THE RED LIGHTHOUSE.
My grandfather had been dead for twenty-five years.
But the photograph was new.
Taken recently.
The image showed his grave.
And beneath the grave marker was a small red lighthouse carved into the stone.
I felt a chill.
Rebecca recognized it.
“That symbol belonged to Adrian's original organization.”
“What organization?”
She looked at my father.
“The Meridian Circle.”
Dad's expression darkened.
“I thought they were gone.”
“What are they?”
“Not a criminal syndicate.”
He paused.
“They're a private network of wealthy families.”
My stomach dropped.
“How wealthy?”
“Powerful enough to influence governments.”
Suddenly everything made sense.
Adrian wasn't working alone.
Julian wasn't the mastermind.
Victoria wasn't the mastermind.
They were pieces.
The real enemy was a network that had existed before any of us were born.
And my son had been born directly into the center of it.
That evening, I made a decision.
I would stop running.
I called my father.
“Dad.”
“Yes?”
“I want to go to the red lighthouse.”
Silence.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because that's exactly what they want.”
“Then maybe that's where we'll finally find them.”
He looked at me.
I had never seen him look so proud and afraid at the same time.
“Then we don't go as victims.”
“What do we go as?”
May you like
He picked up his coat.
“Bait.”
