Chapter 4 - ADRIAN'S GHOST
My brother had been dead for four years, but somebody was using his initials.
Mara traced the number attached to A.V.
Prepaid phone.
Purchased with cash.
Activated that morning.
Grant searched Owen's background.
After leaving military contracting, Owen worked private jobs in Dubai, London, and Monaco.
One client appeared repeatedly.
Vale Global Holdings.
Not my company.
A shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands.
"Who owns it?" I asked.
My attorney, Rebecca Sloan, pulled the filings.
"Beneficial owner is hidden. But the registered agent has ties to Julian."
Julian was not just my cousin. He was my COO, raised beside me, and one of the men who carried Adrian's coffin.
Mara asked, "Why would Julian want you dead?"
"Money is the obvious answer."
"Usually too obvious."
Rebecca opened my estate plan.
If I died, most voting control in Vale Industries went into trust for Noah.
Noah's guardian would not control the company.
An independent trustee would.
Julian gained nothing directly.
Then Rebecca stopped reading.
"Wait."
"What?"
"There's a continuity clause your father added years ago."
If both the chairman and primary heir were incapacitated in the same event, interim operating control passed to the longest-serving family executive.
Julian.
I stared at her.
"Both of us."
Mara nodded.
"Which is why the tower had to hit you and Noah together."
Elena stood in the doorway holding Noah's hand.
She had heard everything.
I looked at my son.
He was five.
He cared about dinosaurs and pancakes shaped like rockets.
Someone had turned him into a corporate condition.
Grant's phone rang.
His face changed.
"What?"
He looked at me.
"Owen Kane is gone."
"Gone where?"
"He never reached county booking."
Mara stood.
"Explain."
Grant swallowed.
"The transport van was intercepted. Two officers were found unconscious."
I looked toward the dark windows.
May you like
Someone had just broken an assassin out of police custody.
And whoever did it knew our route.
