Chapter 5 - Behind the PortraitWe returned upstairs through the service corridor.
The ballroom doors were closed.
Music played softly inside.
Nobody knew the wedding had become an evidence-preservation operation.
Daniel caught my wrist gently.
“Tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“Are you still marrying me today?”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
He smiled once.
“Good. Then let’s survive your family first.”
Inside the ballroom foyer stood my father’s portrait.
Vanessa had insisted it be displayed beside the guestbook.
I thought she was being sentimental.
I should have known better.
Maya opened the back panel.
Empty.
Andrew muttered, “Damn.”
Daniel asked, “What was supposed to be there?”
“My mother kept emergency copies of board resolutions, stock certificates, insurance documents.”
Andrew looked at me.
“And possibly the original amendment to the Collins family trust.”
My pulse jumped.
“What amendment?”
He hesitated.
“I was hoping we wouldn’t need to discuss it today.”
“That sentence is getting old.”
Andrew exhaled.
“Your mother changed the company succession plan six weeks before she died.”
“To what?”
“She gave each daughter forty percent.”
I frowned.
“That’s what we already have.”
“The remaining twenty percent was placed in a voting trust.”
“Controlled by whom?”
Andrew met my eyes.
“Whichever daughter did not hold an executive office at the time of a fraud investigation.”
I stared.
Vanessa was CEO.
I was creative director.
If a formal fraud investigation opened, the voting trust would shift away from Vanessa.
To me.
Daniel understood first.
“So if today’s evidence becomes official…”
Andrew nodded.
“Claire becomes controlling shareholder.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Eight months of sabotage suddenly had a number.
Twenty percent.
Control.
Vanessa was not just stealing.
She was trying to keep me too distracted, too humiliated, too uncertain to challenge her before the audit surfaced.
Maya asked, “Who knew about the amendment?”
“Me. Claire’s mother. Martin.”
I stared at him.
“Not Vanessa?”
“Not officially.”
But Martin knew.
Which meant Vanessa knew.
Then the ballroom doors opened.
Vanessa stepped into the foyer.
Her eyes landed on the open portrait frame.
She stopped.
Andrew said softly, “There she is.”
Vanessa looked at me in my second dress.
Then at Maya’s badge.
Then at the bagged flash drive.
For the first time in my life, my sister had no expression ready.
Then she smiled.
May you like
Slowly.
“You really think you found the only copy?”
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