Chapter 5 - The Price of Silence
Julian wanted the police immediately.
Maya wanted her brother alive.
Those two needs collided in the middle of the kitchen.
“If we call anyone and they’re watching him—”
“They already threatened him,” Julian said. “That means we do not handle this ourselves.”
“You have private security. You have lawyers. You have people who come when you call. Tomas has me.”
Leo interrupted. “Then he has us too.”
Maya looked at him.
He was seventeen, pale from pain, and somehow steadier than both adults.
Julian called his security chief, Marcus Bell, not the police. Marcus sent two plainclothes officers to the hospital where Tomas worked.
At 3:14 a.m., they found him unharmed.
But someone had taped an envelope to the windshield of his car.
Inside was a photocopy of Julian’s medical records.
Someone had circled three appointments: migraines, insomnia, and a temporary medication prescribed after Anna’s death.
At the bottom, in red ink, someone had written:
ENOUGH FOR A JUDGE.
Julian’s jaw tightened. “They’re building a competence case.”
Samuel nodded. “And if they combine medical records with testimony from your spouse and a cooperative doctor, they could get an emergency order.”
“Then what happens?” Leo asked.
“Your father could temporarily lose authority over personal and corporate decisions.”
“To Eleanor.”
“Possibly.”
“And my trust?”
Samuel looked grim. “If the original amendment disappears and the copy is challenged, there could be litigation. Enough delay to keep you from voting at the annual board meeting.”
Julian stared at the dates.
The board meeting was three days after Leo’s eighteenth birthday.
Eleanor had not lost control on the staircase. She had been on a schedule.
At dawn, security escorted her to a guest cottage at the far end of the property while Julian’s attorneys prepared an emergency restraining order.
As she passed Maya, Eleanor leaned close.
“You think you won?” she whispered.
Maya did not answer.
Eleanor smiled.
“Miles isn’t the one you should be afraid of.”
May you like
Then she looked through the glass doors at Samuel Whitmore.
And Samuel’s face changed.
