Chapter 15 - THE HOUSE THAT BUILT HIM
Evelyn Vale had raised Adrian after his parents died.
Charles knew exactly what she meant to him.
Ortiz ordered Adrian not to go.
Evelyn shouted from the video, “Don’t you dare trade yourself for me!”
Charles ended the call.
Adrian went anyway.
Not alone.
The Vale estate had tunnels built during Prohibition, a fact only family and longtime staff knew. Marcus entered through an old wine-cellar passage while Ortiz’s team surrounded the property.
Adrian walked through the front door carrying no weapon.
Charles waited in the library.
“You were always sentimental,” Charles said.
“And you were always standing behind someone richer.”
Charles’s smile tightened.
He had spent twenty-eight years managing Vale money while never owning the Vale name.
He called it humiliation.
Adrian called it theft.
“Victoria deserved security,” Charles said.
“She deserved a father who didn’t turn her into a weapon.”
For the first time, Charles looked angry.
He raised a pistol.
Evelyn kicked the table beside her, knocking a lamp to the floor.
The room went dark.
Marcus came through the hidden panel.
A gunshot cracked.
Glass exploded.
Adrian threw himself over Evelyn.
Ortiz’s team entered from the hall.
Charles ran through the conservatory and smashed through a side door into the rain.
Marcus chased him.
Adrian untied Evelyn.
She slapped his shoulder.
“That was for coming when I told you not to.”
Then she hugged him.
Outside, another shot rang out.
Adrian ran to the terrace.
Marcus lay on the lawn clutching his side.
Charles was gone.
But he had dropped his phone.
Ortiz opened it with his thumbprint from an old security file.
May you like
The most recent message was from Victoria in jail.
DAD, HE STILL DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT ELISE’S SECOND FILE.
