Chapter 11 - The Child’s Name
The emergency lights flickered on, painting the apartment red.
Oliver pulled Grace behind the kitchen island. Maribel raised her pepper spray and whispered, “I have been waiting all evening to use this.”
The front door opened.
Chloe stepped inside with both hands visible. “Don't spray me.”
“You are not the only person who knows how to enter a dark apartment,” Oliver said.
“I used the service stairwell.”
“How did you know the lights would go out?”
“Because someone cut the building's main line.”
She placed a paper folder on the counter. “The child's name is mine.”
Oliver looked at Grace. “You knew Chloe was the heir?”
Grace shook her head. “I knew Naomi had a child before Elena. I didn't know it was Chloe.”
Chloe gave a humorless smile. “The family knew. They made me disappear into a scholarship foundation and paid my mother to keep quiet.”
“Why would the original account be under your name?” Oliver asked.
“Adrian created it when I was born. He moved money into it to protect me from Voss. The account became evidence when the transfers started.”
“How do we access it?”
“We don't. Sebastian does.”
Elena appeared in the hallway behind Chloe. Oliver had not heard her enter. She looked exhausted, without makeup, her hair loose around her shoulders.
“Sebastian called an emergency board vote,” she said. “He is using the scandal to remove me as chief executive.”
Oliver stepped back. “Why are you here?”
“To ask for help.”
“You have lawyers.”
“My lawyers work for the company. I need someone who works for the truth.”
Chloe opened the folder. Inside was a copy of a dormant trust agreement. The beneficiary was listed as C. Vale, born to Adrian Vale and Marisol Chen.
“The trust contains the original financial records,” Chloe said. “Sebastian has been trying to access it for years.”
“Why hasn't he?” Oliver asked.
“Because the trust requires two signatures: mine and the independent auditor named in the agreement.”
Oliver's stomach tightened. “Who is the auditor?”
Chloe turned the page.
PETER PARKER.
“He was supposed to transfer control to me when I turned twenty-five,” she said. “He died before he could.”
Grace whispered, “Peter asked me to keep the trust hidden.”
“And you never told me.”
“You were a child.”
“I am not a child now.”
Elena looked at him. “You are the only person who can authenticate his records.”
Oliver laughed bitterly. “Because I am his son?”
“Because you learned his methods. Your work at Northstar was built around the same audit framework.”
He wanted to reject them all. Instead, he remembered the promotion, the forged signature, the account under Chloe's name, and the person who had tried to turn his father's memory into a crime.
“I will help,” he said. “But no secret meetings, no hidden surveillance, and no decisions made for me.”
Elena nodded. “Agreed.”
“And if the evidence implicates you, I release it.”
“Agreed.”
Her answer was immediate. It frightened him more than resistance would have.
A message arrived on Chloe's phone. She read it and went pale.
“The board vote is tomorrow morning,” she said. “Sebastian has already announced that Elena is stepping down.”
May you like
Elena looked toward the dark windows.
“Then tomorrow,” she said, “my family decides whether it wants a company or a kingdom.”
