Chapter 7 - The Siege at the Estate
Declan reached the estate in eleven minutes.
The security team had locked down the grounds, and police officers were already on their way.
Sadie and Jamie were inside the reinforced study.
When Declan entered, Jamie was holding a fireplace poker while Sadie sat on the sofa, her injured arm cradled against her chest.
“Are you hurt?” Declan asked.
She shook her head.
“Someone left a package at the gate.”
A guard handed him a sealed envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Sadie and Jamie standing outside their childhood home.
Beneath it was a note.
Give us the ledger, or the next injury will be permanent.
Jamie swore under his breath.
Sadie's face went pale.
Declan handed the package to the investigator.
“No one touches this without documenting it.”
He turned to Sadie.
“Do you have the ledger?”
She hesitated.
Then she nodded.
“Not the original. I took photographs of every page I could see. I kept them on a memory card.”
“Where is it?”
Sadie looked toward Jamie.
“In the lining of his old schoolbag.”
Jamie stared at her.
“You hid evidence in my schoolbag?”
“I didn't know where else to put it.”
For a moment, Jamie looked as though he wanted to argue.
Then he laughed, a short, incredulous sound.
“Dad would have done the same thing.”
The memory card was recovered and copied under the investigator's supervision.
It contained enough information to connect Victor to illegal payments, falsified shipping records, and a series of threats against witnesses.
But one file was different.
It showed a payment made the day before Daniel Miller died.
The recipient was a private security company that had since been dissolved.
The payment description read:
Final settlement — D. Miller.
Sadie stared at the screen.
“My father was murdered.”
No one answered.
The evidence was suggestive, but the investigators explained that the payment alone did not prove who had caused Daniel's death. They would need to trace the company, identify the people involved, and corroborate the records.
Sadie pressed her good hand against her mouth.
For fifteen years, she had believed her father had died in an accident.
Now she had reason to suspect that someone had arranged it.
Declan crouched beside her.
“I won't tell you what to feel. And I won't promise a result before the evidence is examined.”
She looked at him through tears.
“What if they get away with it?”
“Then we keep going.”
“And if they come for Jamie?”
“We protect him. We document every threat. And we bring the people responsible before a court.”
Sadie searched his face.
“You're really going to do this the legal way?”
“Yes.”
“Even if Victor is your family?”
Declan's expression hardened.
“Especially because he's my family. He used our name to make people believe he was untouchable.”
He stood.
“Not anymore.”
That night, the estate remained under protection.
No one slept much.
May you like
But when Sadie finally closed her eyes, Jamie was in the next room, Declan's security team was outside the door, and the evidence was safely in the hands of investigators.
For the first time in years, she did not have to stay awake simply to make sure her brother was still alive.
