“She Pushed My Son Down the Stairs for His Inheritance—But the Papers Exposed Everything”

Within ten minutes, every exterior door was locked and every member of staff was told to remain on the property.

Eleanor laughed when the security chief explained it.

“So now I’m a prisoner in my own home?”

“No,” Julian said. “You’re a suspect in mine.”

Leo sat in the library with an ice pack on his shoulder. Maya brought him water.

“You should go to the hospital,” she said.

“I’m not leaving while she’s still here.”

Julian ended his call with Samuel and looked older than he had an hour earlier.

“Anna amended Leo’s trust three days before the crash,” he said.

Leo’s eyes lifted. “What did she change?”

“According to Samuel, she moved twenty-eight percent of Mercer Holdings into an irrevocable trust for you. Full voting control transfers at eighteen.”

Leo stared at him.

His eighteenth birthday was twelve days away.

Maya understood first. “So someone trying to take control of the company has twelve days.”

Julian looked at Eleanor.

She crossed her arms. “You are building a fantasy around a piece of paper.”

Samuel arrived just after midnight. He was seventy, silver-haired, and furious.

“The original amendment was in our fireproof archive,” he said. “Yesterday afternoon, someone used a staff access code to enter the records floor. The file disappeared.”

“Whose code?” Julian asked.

Samuel hesitated.

“Maya Torres.”

Everyone turned.

Maya felt the blood drain from her face.

“That’s impossible.”

Eleanor gave a soft, satisfied sigh. “There it is.”

“I have never been inside your law office.”

Samuel studied her. “The system shows your name and employee identification number.”

“I don’t even have an employee number there.”

Eleanor stepped closer to Julian. “She had access to Leo’s room, your study, your passwords. She has been manipulating your son for months.”

Leo shot to his feet. “Stop.”