Chapter 4
I drove to Aunt Eleanor’s Manhattan apartment with Marco beside me and Detective Reed following behind.
Rosie remained at the estate under police protection.
Leaving her felt wrong, but Eleanor had promised to speak only to me.
She opened the door before I knocked.
The woman who had raised me looked twenty years older than she had at my engagement dinner.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I walked past her.
“Start with Sofia.”
Eleanor closed the door.
“Vivienne came to me four years ago. She had intercepted a letter Sofia sent to your office.”
“The letter about the pregnancy.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped hide it.”
Eleanor’s mouth trembled.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“From my own child?”
“From scandal. Your father had just died. The company was unstable, and the board was looking for any reason to remove you.”
“So you chose my position over my daughter.”
“I chose what I believed your parents would have wanted.”
“My mother would never have abandoned a child.”
Eleanor flinched.
“No. She wouldn’t.”
She handed Reed a folder.
Inside were copies of bank transfers, medical contracts, and messages between Adrian and Richard Vale.
Eleanor had discovered the fraud six months earlier.
Instead of reporting it, she confronted Adrian privately.
“He begged me to give him time,” she said. “He claimed Richard had forced him into it.”
“How much did they steal?”
“Nearly forty million dollars.”
The number barely registered.
“What does that have to do with Rosie?”
Eleanor looked at me.
“Your grandfather’s trust.”
My grandfather had built Mercer Holdings before leaving control to my mother.
After my parents died, most shares passed to me.
I knew the trust named any biological child of mine as the next beneficiary.
“Vivienne planned to marry you,” Eleanor continued. “Once she had a child, Richard expected that child to inherit everything.”
“But Rosie came first.”
“Yes.”
I finally understood why Sofia’s daughter had become dangerous.
Vivienne did not merely hate evidence of my past.
Rosie stood between the Vale family and billions of dollars.
“Did Adrian know Sofia was investigating the foundation?”
Eleanor nodded.
“She found duplicate invoices and threatened to report them. Adrian told me she was confused.”
“You believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
I slammed my hand against the table.
“My daughter nearly disappeared this morning because you wanted to believe your son.”
Eleanor began sobbing.
“I changed my mind. I warned Claire about the clinic.”
“Was it you who called the police last night?”
“Yes.”
“Why anonymously?”
“Because Adrian said he would destroy you if I chose your side.”
“He already tried.”
Eleanor opened a locked cabinet and removed a wooden box.
Rosie’s box.
“You had it.”
“I took it from Adrian after the funeral.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“I was afraid of what was inside.”
I used Claire’s key.
The lid opened, revealing Sofia’s ring case, several photographs of Rosie, and a false wooden base.
Beneath it lay a flash drive.
There was also a photograph of Sofia and me from the night of my father’s funeral.
We were sitting together on the kitchen steps.
Her head rested against my shoulder.
On the back, she had written:
For the night he remembered he was human.
I closed my eyes.
Eleanor touched my arm.
“I should have told you.”
I pulled away.
“You should have protected her.”
Reed took the flash drive.
“We need to examine this through the department.”
“No copies leave my sight without a record.”
“You’re a potential suspect because the medication was found in your desk.”
“My fiancée’s prints were on it.”
“So were yours.”
Marco’s phone rang.
He listened, then handed it to me.
It was Maria.
“Rosie’s gone.”
My blood turned to ice.
“What do you mean?”
“A woman from child services arrived with police. She had an emergency removal order. They said you were under investigation.”
“I’m not under arrest.”
“She showed me a judge’s signature.”
Reed took the phone.
After a short exchange, her face hardened.
“No county agency authorized a removal.”
I ran for the elevator.
Marco contacted every security vehicle.
The woman had arrived in an official-looking sedan with two men wearing uniforms.
The gate officer had verified the court order through a telephone number printed on the page.
It led to a fake court clerk.
I called Adrian.
He answered calmly.
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“My daughter.”
“You should be careful with accusations.”
“If anything happens to Rosie, I will spend every dollar I own destroying you.”
He laughed softly.
“That’s always been your problem, cousin. You think money makes you powerful.”
“Where is she?”
“You chose a servant’s child over your family.”
“She is my family.”
His silence told me the words had struck him.
Then a child cried in the background.
“Daddy!”
The call ended.
I stopped breathing.
Marco traced the signal to an industrial district near the East River, but the location moved almost immediately.
They were transporting her.
Detective Reed issued an abduction alert.
Traffic cameras picked up the sedan crossing Queensboro Bridge.
Then it disappeared inside a private parking structure owned by Vale Medical.
We reached the building within twenty minutes.
Officers blocked the exits.
I ran through the garage shouting Rosie’s name.
A gunshot cracked from the lower level.
Reed ordered me behind cover.
I kept moving.
Another shot struck a concrete pillar.
Marco tackled me as fragments sprayed across the floor.
A black SUV accelerated toward the exit.
Through its rear window, I saw Rosie pounding both hands against the glass.
“Daddy!”
I broke free and ran after it.
The exit gate began lowering as police vehicles blocked the ramp.
The SUV swerved, crashed through a barrier, and struck a parked van.
Officers surrounded it.
Richard Vale was driving.
One of his security men sat beside him with a handgun.
Rosie was in the back seat.
I pulled the door open and lifted her out.
She clung to me so tightly I could barely breathe.
“I knew you’d come,” she sobbed.
Richard was dragged from the driver’s seat.
“This proves nothing,” he shouted. “I was rescuing her from an unstable household.”
Reed held up the false court order.
“This proves plenty.”
As officers handcuffed him, my phone vibrated.
Vivienne had sent me a photograph.
It showed Adrian standing inside the Mercer Foundation’s records room with a gasoline can.
May you like
Beneath it was one sentence.
Give me the flash drive, or everything Sofia died protecting burns tonight.
