Chapter 10 - The Living Dead Man
Charlotte finally gave them an address outside Versailles.
Not a mansion.
A private rehabilitation estate owned through a medical trust.
Amina refused to go alone.
By noon, she, Antoine, Jules, and two investigators stood outside a stone building surrounded by winter trees.
The director tried to stop them.
Then Jules showed the court preservation order obtained that morning.
The man's confidence vanished.
Étienne Delacroix was alive.
Older.
Thinner.
But very much alive.
He sat beside a window with a blanket over his knees.
When Charlotte entered, his eyes filled with anger, not affection.
"You brought them here."
She stopped in the doorway.
"You told me Bernard would protect me."
"Bernard protects himself."
Amina stepped forward.
Étienne recognized her immediately.
"Mariam's girl."
Amina's stomach tightened.
"You knew my mother."
"Everyone who built Beaumont knew your mother."
"Then tell me why her signature was forged."
Étienne looked at Antoine.
"Because your father needed control before the American investors arrived."
Antoine's face hardened.
"And you helped him."
"I helped myself."
At least he didn't pretend otherwise.
Étienne admitted that he and Bernard created shell vendors in the late 1990s to siphon cash while stripping Mariam's voting rights.
But he insisted the current theft was different.
"Bernard restarted the system five years ago."
"Why?" Amina asked.
Étienne smiled without warmth.
"Because the Beaumont empire has been insolvent longer than the public knows."
He pointed toward Charlotte.
"And because my daughter was supposed to marry the man who could keep signing."
Antoine stared at his wife.
Charlotte began crying.
Then Étienne looked at Amina.
"You want the truth? Find the green book."
"Where?"
"Bernard moved it after Mariam died."
Amina went still.
"My mother died in a car accident."
May you like
Étienne's expression changed.
"Is that what Bernard told you?
