Chapter 9 - The Deadly Motive
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The sheer, unfathomable evil of it paralyzed me in the freezing study. Noah and Caleb hadn't died because Victoria hated me, or because she thought they were born into a broken home.
They died as a calculated business transaction. They were collateral damage to protect a $50 million secret from the Russian mob.
I fell to my knees on the dusty hardwood floor, clutching my stomach as a jagged, agonizing scream tore from my throat. The sound echoed through the abandoned mansion, a raw expression of a mother’s completely shattered heart.
For months, I had blamed myself. I had agonized over leaving them in the kitchen with her. I had tortured myself wondering if I could have saved them.
But they were marked for death the moment Trevor drafted that email.
I stayed on the floor until my tears completely dried up, replaced by a cold, terrifying clarity. The grieving, broken mother evaporated in the freezing coastal wind, and something entirely new took her place.
I stood up. I didn't shake anymore.
I gathered the ledgers, the bearer bonds, and the diamonds, shoving them aggressively into my heavy backpack.
Victoria thought she was safe in her high-security prison cell. She thought her expensive lawyers would eventually buy her freedom. She believed she had won the war because she had successfully stopped the audit and kept the Sokolovs' money hidden.
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She didn't realize that the quiet, submissive daughter-in-law she had slapped at a funeral was now holding the physical encryption keys to her entire survival.
I zipped the backpack shut, turning off my flashlight. I walked out of the summer estate, the storm raging outside matching the violent, unstoppable fury brewing in my soul. I was going to burn Victoria Whitmore’s world to the ground.
