Chapter 14 - PLAN B
Victor’s jet sat fueled for a New York trip scheduled the next morning.
The intruder at the hangar escaped before security arrived.
But a mechanic found something worse.
One of the hydraulic lines had been deliberately loosened.
Victor stood under the aircraft wing while Detective Ellis photographed the damage.
“If you’d taken off like this?” he asked.
The mechanic shook his head. “Best case, emergency landing. Worst case…”
He did not finish.
Victor thought of Paul Danner’s crash.
Lily’s brake line.
Henry Caldwell’s stroke.
The pattern was no longer theoretical.
Mara turned to him. “We need you somewhere secure.”
“My son first.”
“Both of you.”
Victor moved Lily, Ethan, Rosa, and two essential staff members to a guarded property outside the city.
Serena’s face was now on every local news station.
Her attorney claimed she was being framed by ‘disgruntled domestic employees and an emotionally unstable former fiancé.’
Then Serena vanished.
Police found her abandoned car near the river.
No body.
No phone.
No passport missing from her apartment because three passports under different names had already been discovered there.
That night, Victor sat beside Ethan’s portable crib while Lily checked the locks for the third time.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“I know.”
She checked them anyway.
At 2:14 a.m., the security alarm chirped once.
Not the full siren.
Just one soft warning.
Daniel appeared in the hallway holding a pistol low at his side.
“Stay here.”
Victor ignored him and followed.
They found no intruder.
But on the front porch sat a small white gift box.
Inside was Ethan’s missing blue sock from the mansion.
And a note.
May you like
You can protect him from me.
You can’t protect him from the man who owns you.
