Chapter 8 - EMMA TAKEN
Victor called from a country house in Connecticut.
Emma's voice was faint in the background.
"Daddy?"
"I'm here."
"You should thank me."
Christopher's voice went flat.
"For kidnapping a seven-year-old?"
"For proving Eleanor never deserved to run this family."
"What do you want?"
"Recognition."
"Take a DNA test."
"I already did."
"Then release Emma."
"And the shares."
"No."
Silence.
"Emma is not currency."
"Easy to say when she controls thirty-four percent."
Police surrounded the property.
He was Thomas Pierce's first son.
Older than Christopher.
Hidden.
Unacknowledged.
He believed every Pierce asset was built on his erasure.
"Your pain is real," Christopher said.
Victor went quiet.
"But Emma didn't cause it."
That made him angry.
"You sound like Thomas."
Then Emma screamed.
A crash.
The line stayed open.
Emma shouted, "You're a liar!"
Brooks checked the tactical feed.
Emma had climbed through an upstairs window onto the porch roof.
Victor came after her.
Emma jumped.
Twelve feet.
Into a hedge.
Branches broke the fall.
Officers reached her first.
At the hospital, X-rays showed a small ankle fracture.
Nothing else.
"You scared me."
"He said you were dead."
"I know."
"I knew he lied when he called Grandma 'Mom.'"
"What?"
The DNA had already proved Eleanor was his mother.
But Emma had heard something else.
"You chose him twice."
"Twice?"
One beneficiary had been removed eleven months before Christopher's birth.
Victor Hale.
Thomas had once planned to recognize him.
Then Eleanor persuaded him not to.
May you like
She did not simply hide Victor.
She helped erase him a second time.
